


Green Cards & Getaway Cars

by wordbyrdaber



Category: Logan Lucky (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Clyde Logan is having none of your bs, F/M, Fake Marriage, Friends to Lovers, If Ben were a gentle surly bar owner, M/M, Medium Burn, Oral Sex, Praise Kink, Probably lots of that coming up, Protective Siblings, Rey starts out OOC, Sex, Small Towns, Superstition, Vaginal Fingering, Veteran Clyde Logan, West Virginia, he'd be Clyde, she's been through a lot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-07-04 05:36:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15834813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordbyrdaber/pseuds/wordbyrdaber
Summary: Can two cursed people cancel out each other's bad luck?Rey has just suffered through the worst month of her life, but a quiet barman might just be the answer to all her problems.Story excerpt:“Well, maybe you can marry someone. You know – just until you get things handled with immigration.”Rey chuckles in disbelief.“I’m afraid that’s easier said than done. I don’t suppose you know anyone who’s looking for something akin to a mail-order bride? A complete emotional wreck of a mail-order bride, at that?”He coughs again, and there’s silence.Clyde gives the woman a beat or two so she can put together what he’s suggesting.When he finally hears a quiet little sound of realization, he knows she’s figured it out.“You mean…?”“Yeah. Me.”And somehow - miraculously - he’s finally found the nerve to look into her wide, gold-green eyes.





	1. I Drink Alone (With Nobody Else)

During weekday afternoons, when the sun is especially sharp and there aren’t any shadows to hide in, The Duck Tape seems like an exposed corner of purgatory. 

Sure, there’s the smell of Pine-Sol that’s swabbed over whatever was left a mess the night before, but the muddy scent of stale booze, smoke, and sweat are still in the air – ingrained into the soul of such places. There’s not much between lonesomeness and promise during the hours of noon to five in a bar. 

Clyde Logan knows this. 

He knows the slow crawl of daylight hours. It suits him fine, and there’s enough business during nights and weekends to make up for any lulls that last for more than a decent stretch. 

Nevertheless, he’s counted the individual LED lights around the periphery of the counter he stands behind more often than he cares to admit; from his vantage point which squarely faces the front door, he can see about eighty-four individual aqua-colored bulbs. He’s memorized the pictures hangin’ on the walls, and the way light looks during each hour of each morning, noon, and evening he spends at his post. 

Yes, he’s got the layout of the place mapped out perfectly in his brain. It’s part of him now, probably more so than the prosthetic metal limb that’s a stand-in for the one he lost during his deployment in Iraq. On this day and in this moment, he’s resting a spell before offering his afternoon regular, Al Dalton, another beer. Decent enough guy, but every now and again Al goes from nursing his Bud Light to taking it by the gallon. That’s when Clyde has to call Sharon down at the Boone County clerk’s office so that she can come pick up her husband. 

Bill Carter, who’s fixed the plumbing for most every house in Danville, is also there - sitting by a window near the pool tables, probably thinking hard about clogged drains and waste-venting systems.

Down at the very end of the bar is Tad Charles, playing some fool game on his phone that’s making a chorus of irritating sounds. Clyde knows better than to ask him what he’s doing drinking whisky here instead of selling cars over at his daddy’s dealership.

In another life long gone, Tad had played football with Clyde’s older brother Jimmy. They’d been the terror of the field in high school, and they’d still meet up sometimes to watch a few games every fall. The two former stars would talk about their glory days, and Clyde would rely on his natural stoicism to keep his eyes from rolling right back into his skull. He loves his brother – doesn’t begrudge Jimmy his good memories…but Clyde didn’t have the same high school experience that Jimmy’d had, that’s for damn sure. 

If he wanted to, Clyde knew he was capable of writing up a guidebook of regulars. He’s somewhat amused by the thought of keeping such a thing behind the register alongside the Bartender’s Bible he used as a reference for the fancy technicolor drinks people sometimes ordered.

He had a knack for remembering his patrons by face, name, occupation, and poison of choice. In some ways, he’d come to think of himself as their confessor – always there to listen without interrupting. Always there with the vodka tonics or shots of courage they needed to get them through. 

Father Clyde, who presided lovingly over The Duck Tape, didn’t judge ‘em.  
In his line of work, it was advisable to never judge. 

Besides, he knows a thing or two about human misery. All the Logans do because of The Curse. His brother and sister won’t accept it and won’t listen to him most of the time, but there is definitely a heap of bullshit luck that has been passed down through their family line from one generation to the next. 

The best he could figure, The Curse had started more than a century before when his great great granduncle had died during an electrical storm. Stratfield “Stickly” James Logan had been trying to get home from the mines before the weather hit.  
As Clyde recalled, the story was that Uncle Stickly had found a golden nugget that day below the earth that was at least the size of a grown man’s thumb.  
Unfortunately, the nugget was just a little too big, and Stickly didn’t know that lightening was especially fond of precious metals. 

Since then, things for all the Logans had been tenuous at best.  
Things like that just didn’t happen to normal folk – starting with what happened to Stickly, and, most recently, his Mama getting sick after the settlement her husband won in a lawsuit against the chemical company. 

The Curse is another thing that Clyde knows in his bones, but wishes to high heavens he didn’t. 

He’s on autopilot at the moment, motioning to Al in the familiar, wordless exchange they’ve developed over the years when the Tape’s front door all but blows open with a force equal to cyclonic winds. 

A woman with brown snap bean arms and spindle legs to match whirls into his place, finally lands near a table next to Clyde’s vintage jukebox, and starts to let loose loud gasping sobs. She drops her face into the nest of folded hands she’s made for her head and just…wails. 

All three of Clyde’s customers are stunned, and after a few moments, there’s the slow uncomfortable creak of barstools on the wooden floor as they start to fidget.  
The noises coming from Tad’s phone seem even louder now- somewhat more intrusive than they’d already been.  
Bill walks ‘round to the bar and asks to settle up his tab.  
Clyde rubs the back of his head with his right hand, and raises an eyebrow towards Bill.

This will not do. 

 

*******

 

The entire month has been a nightmare. 

Four weeks ago, Rey’d been living in a beautiful apartment with her handsome architect fiancé – a fiancé who she thought would be marrying her by year’s end.  
They’d planned a December wedding with candles and ice statues that would glow like mirrors.  
The pictures were going to be beautiful.  
She’d just finished her graduate degree and was looking for jobs in the local area so that she could put her education to use.  
The timing of the wedding wasn’t great – everything was turbulent, but details had been all but solidified. 

There was a cream off-the-shoulder Oleg Cassini hanging in her closet, ready to go back to the tailor for final alterations. The veil was currently having seed pearls sewn into the delicate lace so that they’d catch the chapel light just so. 

There was a venue that had been booked eight months in advance, and a very reputable cake-maker who had, she was certain, cost her more than the purchase of a small country in eastern Europe would’ve. The confection sugar cupcake tower shot through with red ribbon fondant would have been chic without overkill. 

But.  
Instead of a few final blissful months before exchanging nuptials with Poe, Rey Kenobi’s entire life had gone pear-shaped. 

She’d come home after a day of wedding registry selection to find their mutual friend, Finn, sitting in the living room next to her beloved.  
They’d sat her down in one of the big plush chairs she and Poe had selected months before, and she’d actually been silly enough to think that they were breaking good news to her – that they were taking her away on a vacation, or that they’d all won a great deal of money.  
Something like that. 

Stupid….so stupid to think….

Her smile had flinched, then dissipated like a fart when both Poe and Finn had taken a deep breath, grasped each other’s hands, and told Rey in steady somber voices that they…were in love.

Of course, she’d collapsed into a literal heap at first. Then there had been two days of near unconsciousness in bed. Shock, she now knows, is one hell of a beast to grapple with. And after shock, there is the slow, deep, heavy throb of heartbreak. 

After mentally packing all her dreams of a happy married life into subconscious compartments like abandon household décor, Rey had been able to gather the wherewithal to get up, shower, and start looking for places to move. Living in the apartment where she’d been so happy – so stupidly happy – was now painful at best. 

Just…stupid. So, so stupid…

Poe, who she couldn’t deny still cared for her, had floated the idea of Rey staying with him until she could figure out what to do. They’d had marathons of long, painful conversations as of late, and the practicality of finances was a recurring theme. 

“Sunshine, you’re not bringing in money right now, and I’m not going to abandon you. You’re too important to me – to Finn and me, actually, and,”

She’d flinched at the pet name, and had raised her hand lamely in front of his face, as if putting a boundary between them would shield Poe from her emotive fury.

“Stop. Just…stop. I can’t see that working right now, darl…”  
And that’s where her sentence stopped.  
Because he isn’t her darling.  
Not anymore.  
She is just a tape recorder of lingual memories and knee-jerk phrases.  
Even her terms of endearment are fractured. 

In the end, Poe had agreed that he’d pay for a couple months in a new apartment of Rey’s choosing. And, despite his objections, that she’d be paying him back every cent.  
She didn’t want any favors from this person who she thought had loved her.  
In his own way, he still did. But it was tinged with poison now.  
No.  
No gifts from secretly gay ex-fiancé persons.  
No thank you. 

Rey realizes that everything about her heartbreak sounds trite, and that’s perhaps what bothers her the most. She’d read about situations like this, and had even seen salacious talk shows with screaming ex-lovers airing their dirty laundry, spewing their bile and bitter tensions for all the world to see.  
She wasn’t that kind of person. 

Well, probably wasn’t. 

Although…although in the past few weeks, she’d started acting in ways she would have slapped herself for prior to Poe and Finn’s declaration that they were eternal soulmates. She’d started thinking about things like renting a blowtorch and taking it to Poe’s favorite sweater, his collection of model planes, his perfectly curling brown, beautiful hair…

Right. 

So maybe it is possible to turn into that kind of person.  
Best to get out before anyone gets hurt or arrested. 

Hunting for a new place to live had been the perfect excuse to be gone from her former love nest most days and not simply wallow. Poe told her that she didn’t have to go – had promised her that Finn wouldn’t be around the apartment – that they’d just meet up elsewhere.  
Nevertheless, she didn’t want to sit around in what had once been her harbor of comfort and safety. 

Speaking to the realtor her fia….ex…now ex, had hired also kept her from sinking into despair; you couldn’t just unload on a stranger when there was a job to do, and a professional boundary to mind. 

Yes, having a goal keeps her together body and soul. She’d started packing boxes, and not without help. 

Her friend Jessika had been a goddess of sustaining love and preservation. She brought many of those boxes – most from liquor stores, which were really the best ones for packing - to the apartment, along with duct tape, fried food, and booze.  
So maybe that’s why Rey has been drinking more.  
It had just become habit, really.  
She’s gone from having the occasional gin and tonic to downing a bottle of wine with Jess every evening to maybe having a regular nip or five a day from the old flask Poe thought he’d disposed of long ago…but who could blame her?  
Considering what she’s going through, Rey congratulates herself for not turning to hard drugs. 

Besides, being languid and warm and numb is preferable to feeling shattered. 

Rey is already buzzed on her way home from looking at yet another apartment located a whole city away from Poe. This is the very same day that she’s finally recognized the necessity of prying the engagement ring she’s been wearing off of her finger.  
It has no right to be a part of her anymore, just like Poe. 

The place she’d toured that day was a nice studio apartment with good lighting not far from a bustling downtown location.  
She might find a job in such a place, just until she could figure out how to use her degree.  
Maybe she can be one of those lovely women dressed in skirts and suit jackets, holding their morning cuppa as they walked to the office.  
Rey’d seem a tower of strength to people in passing, and maybe she could eventually be that strong again.  
There was also a little patio balcony where she could grow plants.  
After all, she had her own jungle that Poe’d often teased her about.  
She shakes her head at the memory, taking another nip from the flask that’s been wedged between her thigh and the car seat.  
At least the place seems manageable.  
Easy.  
The thing is, for the first time she could actually envision living in one of the places she’d seen.  
Perhaps that indicated growth…or maybe it was just the vodka. 

As she flies down the highway trying desperately to maintain the pace set by early afternoon traffic, her phone rings and goes directly to Bluetooth. She answers, expecting Linda the realtor’s cheery salutation.  
Instead, it is a sterile male voice – all business, all hard edges.  
And just like that, things get remarkably worse for Rey Kenobi. 

After the conversation ends, she turns off on the next highway exit.

There’s a sign that she vaguely registers passing; something about entering Danville, Population: dwindling. She’s not interested in location. That doesn’t seem to matter anymore. 

Rey wends and winds around small rundown houses and service stations until she finds a place she can stop for a real drink. Her sky-blue Volkswagen flies into the parking lot of a grim-looking sports bar, and she thinks that she’s really had much too much vodka because they can’t’ve actually meant to spell “Duck Tape” that way, and then she’s falling over her own feet desperate for a beer to drink and a chair to sit in because the world is dropping out from underneath her.


	2. One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The two exchange a glare that might wilt the nethers of any onlooking civilian; Clyde realizes that he can hear his heartbeat resonating in his ears like a drum. 
> 
> He thinks for a moment that if she weren’t so mean, his adversary would be…kinda pretty in a wild way, what with her hazel eyes and the freckles on her nose."
> 
> WARNING: Rey acts like a raging horrible ass hat in this chapter.   
>  
> 
> ****************************************************************************************************************************

“You are scaring my customers, ma’am.” 

Clyde says this slowly, as if speaking to a distraught child. 

It’s all he can think to do in this moment, and he hopes that it’s somewhere between stern and diplomatic.  
He’s got a sister, but it’s been a while since he’s had to be around a girl gettin’ all rubbery and sad.  
He didn’t have to worry about dealing with someone delicate, though.  
He knows this because the woman momentarily peeks up at him from her hands, and all but snarls.  
It’s like watching the Exorcist when the little girl’s head turns all the way ‘round. The look on this woman’s face is…frightening. 

“Well, you’re a patronizing git,” she mutters without hesitation. 

This might not’ve been the best way to intervene. 

After years of dealing with drunk, emotional people he should be better at this.  
Men, he could handle.  
But women?  
Clyde’s pulse speeds up as he considers dumping water on her head.  
She could probably use it, ‘cause she smells like a damn distillery. 

“Screw your bloody customers, I need a pint.” 

Her tight voice cracks under the effort of speaking, and something in his gut twists.  
It feels oddly like anger, but he takes a deep breath, and tries again. 

“You aren’t gettin’ anything. You’ve already had enough, I c’n tell.” 

Like an angry snake, her body reacts instantly, all fury and wet eyes. 

“You have to give me one! Here,” – the woman violently slings a crossbody bag onto the table top, and rummages around in it. Finally, she throws a crumpled twenty at him. It lands on his chest, and bounces off, falling limply to the floor. 

Behind him, Tad lets out a low long whistle. 

“I’m a paying customer. I have money! And I…need…a…pint, you sasquatch!” 

She grits the last part out through her teeth like she’s in pain.  
Clyde turns his head to the side momentarily before clearing his throat. 

The woman isn’t short, exactly. But she is thin and sinewy.  
He could probably take her. He could just pick her up, and physically throw her out of his bar.  
The look in her eyes tells him it’d be a tussle, though.  
And she’s British; he can hear the telltale accent. 

Aren’t these people supposed to be more…genteel?  
She sounds like the programs on Smokey Mountain Public Television. The Masterpiece ones, with the good costumes and King’s English. She’s nothing like the fancy lookin’ ladies with big hats and gloves, though. 

Clyde closes his eyes, and can feel his right hand clenching into a fist.  
There’s a painful tingling on his left side too, where his arm used to be. When he’s upset – really, truly upset – his body reacts by trying to summon up the strength in a limb that no longer exists.  
He considers this just another cruel joke the universe likes to play on him.  
Maybe it’s this thought that finally makes him snap. A voice he hasn’t used in years emerges from the depths of his gut. It is the same voice he’d used to yell at Jimmy a time or two, and he’d used it plenty when he’d been in Iraq. It is most effective, he knows, because he is usually a quiet man. 

“Everybody out!” he booms.  
Both of his remaining customers go pale, and abandon their drinks, all but sprinting for the door. He looks down at the woman who glares up at him from her seat, completely unphased.

He bends down, placing his right hand on the table so that he can lean directly over her and glower.  
At six-feet-three-inches, he knows he can be intimidating, and he’s willing to use every inch of his height advantage. 

“I…am a gentleman. I don’t swear in front of women. That’s why I will not call you all the things that are comin’ to mind right now, and I am not about to use physical force. But,” and at this point, he snatches her purse off the table, reaches in, and pulls out her keyring.

“You’re not drinkin’ in my bar, and you sure as hell are not gettin’ into your car like this to drive around my town. So, I’m confiscatin’ your keys until you sober up…which you can do in the storage room, where you cain’t bother people.” 

The woman snorts.  
“I thought you said you didn’t swear in front of women.”

Clyde checks himself momentarily.  
“Hell’s a word in the Bible. That ain’t swearin’, ma’am.” 

The two exchange a glare that might wilt the nethers of any onlooking civilian; Clyde realizes that he can hear his heartbeat resonating in his ears like a drum. He thinks for a moment that if she weren’t so mean, his adversary would be…kinda pretty in a wild way, what with her hazel eyes and the freckles on her nose.  
Suddenly, the woman’s face goes all soft as if something has broken in a place he can’t see.  
She chokes back another sob, and looks up into his eyes with panic.

It’s the same eyes he’s seen before, but in different faces. 

“Oh, Gods - I’m just cursed, aren’t I? I’m cursed…”

Clyde stops cold, and a shiver runs its way through his body.  
He swallows hard, but before he can respond, the mean little woman throws up on his shoes and passes out on the tabletop. 

 

*******

 

The first thing she’s aware of is something soft underneath her cheek. Rey realizes that her skin is mashed up against a fabric surface, and that it’s wet because…oh God, she’s been drooling.  
Yes, she’s laying on her stomach against something soft and cushioned, even if her feet are dangling over a narrow edge. Rey opens her eyes with some effort and dull light hits her throbbing temples.  
She throws an expletive into the air, and quickly closes her eyes again, only daring to squint after a few seconds. 

After shuffling her limbs, she licks her teeth with a sandpaper tounge – then wrinkles her nose.  
It feels like someone has stuffed burning cotton balls down her throat. She tries to raise herself onto her forearms, and that’s when her stomach joins the cacophony of arguments that her body seems to be having with itself. Rey sits up, and notices that there’s a red mop bucket directly underneath where her head has been resting for…God knows how long.  
Where is she, anyway? 

Rey looks around, and notices that she’s been sleeping on an ancient couch with brown and gold upholstery – the kind she’s often seen in thrift stores and nursing homes. There’s music coming from somewhere – something old and riddled with guitar riffs, and it floats in from below a closed door.  
She considers all of this for a moment, then swings her legs far out in front – almost knocking over the bottle of water sitting by the end of the couch. 

Rey isn’t sure of how long she sits, hunched over her knees, and occasionally drinking from the water bottle. Had she thrown up already? Had that only been a dream? Rey can remember bits and pieces of what’s transpired, and the more she recalls, the more horrified she becomes. 

“So this is what rock bottom feels like,” she thinks, and realizes her purse is sitting on what looks like a desk in the far corner of the room. She propels herself off the couch and grabs the grey messenger bag, gingerly throwing it over her shoulder. Maybe she can just sneak out of here – wherever here is. She’d just plug her cell into the car for a quick charge, and then she could be getting back to Poe’s. No one had to know about this. 

Taking a deep breath, Rey gently opens the door, and scuttles down a singular dark hallway. She stops every few feet to make sure she hasn’t been detected. Along the way, Rey looks for a side door to escape through; unfortunately, she can only see one way in or out of this place, and it’s across a very loud, bright room. Still, Rey pushes herself onward in the hopes that she can just leave without being noticed. It’s a bar, after all. All kinds of people probably come and go. It’s late enough that the place is probably busy, and she won’t be stopped as long as she acts the part. 

Rey shoots out from the shadows of the hallway, head down and eyes directed at the floor.  
And she’s very diligently making a beeline towards the front entrance, when an awkward silence stops her dead in her tracks.  
All voices, clinking glasses, and pool playing has ceased.  
Music from the jukebox keeps playing, and Rey notices that she’s hearing the refrain of Seger’s “Against the Wind.” When she finally has the nerve to look up, there is a bar full of people who are staring intently at her, mouths agog.  
This is the first time she’s considered what she must look like.

“Aw, hell,” a low, rumbling voice comes from somewhere beside her, and a very large person is instantly ushering her back down the hallway and out of sight.  
After a moment, someone shouts, “You keepin’ girls in the back now, Logan?”  
There’s a chorus of laughter at this, and a distinct growl that comes from her escort.  
She flinches. 

“I didn’t think you’d wake up for a while, yet. Else I’d’ve gotten Rob to watch the bar for me. I was only s’posed to be out front till seven, anyhow.” 

This, Rey realizes, is the person she has called “sasquatch” within the last few hours of her very wayward and vodka-doused existence. 

“Excuse me, but…where am I?”

Sasquatch gives a heavy sigh, and opens the door to the room Rey woke up in. She gently lands on the couch again, turning towards the man who takes a seat in a rolling office chair. He’s massive, even when he’s sitting down. Rey swallows hard, trying to relieve some of the tension she’s feeling, and reaches around behind her to find that the neat, tight ponytail she’d started the day with is now a bedraggled mess of tangles. 

After a moment of consideration, she clears her throat.  
“Where am I?” she repeats.  
“Um, you’re…” the man takes a moment, then furrows his brow and looks into her face.  
“You’re my… guest.”

A smile starts at the corners of her mouth. Sasquatch is a gruff looking man, but not mean, nor without charm. His nose is an angular Grecian line, and he’s got a mop of big, dark waves around his head that cover ears still big enough to peak out from the sides of his head. Yes. Gruff, but not unkind. If he was truly mean, she’d be in a drunk tank right now instead of sitting comfortably on an ugly little couch. 

“I’m Rey, by the way. Rey Kenobi. I…I vaguely remember being, um, unpleasant. I’m very sorry about all of that.”

Unpleasant, she suspects, is an understatement. 

Sasquatch’s brow is still furrowed, and he’s watching Rey carefully now. For the first time, she has the wherewithal to take a cursory glance around the office, and then again at her…host. She notices that the walls are plastered in concert flyers and the usual required labor posters. 

The desk, like the couch, is nestled against the sidewall of the room; a liquor license hangs between the two along with a framed picture of her host with three other people. His arm is wrapped around a pretty woman’s shoulders while a little blonde girl sits in the arms of another man who is hoisting her up into the shot.  
The little girl is making a funny face, and the three grownups are laughing. 

“I- I’m sorry that I’ve been passed out in your office,” she stutters, making a note of the pretty woman in the picture frame.  
“I don’t remember coming in here, but, well. I’m sorry, Mr…?”  
“Logan, ma’am. M’name is Clyde Logan. And you have caused me some trouble today, it is true.” 

She freezes. There’s a loaded intelligence to his words. Kind, he may be – but her new acquaintance is also not happy. She doesn’t know what to say, so she gives him a tight, sad smile.

“Yes, I know. And I’ll pay for anything I broke or spoiled.”  
Clyde just keeps staring at her with big, glum dark eyes. She takes this as her cue to leave.  
“Well, it was nice to meet you, Mr. Logan, but I should probably settle up and,”  
“Why did you say you were cursed?” he asks abruptly, pronouncing every syllable slowly, with purpose.  
“You bust into my bar, call me names, and throw up on my shoes. Mind you, it’s none of my business, but I’m inclined to think you owe me some kind of explanation.”

She frowns, vaguely recalling the words she’d yelled out just before everything got fuzzy.  
“You run a bar. What’s another messed up person causing a scene? Don’t you see that a lot?”  
“Let’s not change the subject, ma’am.”  
Rey snorts, folding her arms over her chest.  
“I’ll tell you if you tell me how you lost your arm.” 

His eyes go dead. It’s a low blow, and she knows it. This man has done nothing to hurt her. He raises from the chair, and walks over to one of the walls. He leans against it as if for support, and turns his face away from her. 

“I’m…I’m sorry,” Rey manages, feeling shame coloring her cheeks. She raises her hand to her mouth in an action that pantomimes stuffing the words back into her mouth. After a moment, her voice breaks. New tears spill down her face, tracing the salty trails that have already marked her skin with faint streaks of smeared mascara. What kind of person has she become? 

“I’ve been such an asshole. That’s…that’s a horrible thing to ask, and you’ve been nothing but kind. I’m just – I haven’t been able to trust anyone lately because…things have happened, and I’ve just…become such a monster.” 

Clyde flinches, then turns. He cocks his brow, and the gruff face relaxes a little.  
He finally nods.  
“It’s alright,” he rumbles softly.  
“Folks around here ain’t shy, and at least you realized…well,”  
He sits back down in his office chair. Leaning over, Clyde uses his right arm to reach for the water bottle, which he then places into Rey’s shaking hands. 

“I know a thing or two about monsters. Just take your time.”


	3. Life Turned Her That Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “That’s – that’s the sweetest, Clyde. The problem is, you can likely get someone from around here to tend bar, or whatever else you need done. If I were to stay because of employment, it would probably have to be a specialized position that only I could fill.”  
> He looks up forlornly, cursing her word choice and reprimanding that part of his psyche imagining Rey in specialized positions that have nothing to do with her employment status.  
> “I don’t suppose you know of anyone who needs a theoretical physicist?”  
> “Nope, don’t s’pose I do.” 
> 
> **********************************
> 
> Note from Author:  
> Hey, beautiful cats and kittens - I'll be in New York for a few days, so I don't know if I'll update.  
> However, when I get back, there will be more Clyde and Rey goodness.  
> How do you think the Logan siblings are going to react to all this, anyway?
> 
> **********************************

Less than four hours ago, Clyde had wanted nothing more than for Rey to leave his bar.

She was lucky he hadn’t called the cops, but he was loathe to do that for several reasons – most of which involved the large sums of money resting safely in his bank account. 

True, she’d been less than kind, and Mama had always said that there was no excuse for rudeness. O’course, Mama had never met Rey, or heard this story.  
He guesses that she might’ve made an exception in this case.  
“Cursed” didn’t seem to cover it.  
Her story was…a lot to think about.  
Was she making it all up?  
Could a person do that?  
It was possible, but not altogether probable.  
Ready to marry a sweetheart that turns out to be in love with someone else after all but havin’ the wedding planned?  
Havin’ no job and no place to live? 

Good Lord. That was enough to make anyone a little nuts.

“The really crummy part,” she’d said, turning her head away from Clyde momentarily, “is that I really do still love him. I want Poe to be happy. I just didn’t want him to be happy – like this.”  
The biggest blow, she reveals, is the news she’d gotten just before walking into his bar.

“You might’ve noticed,” she parsed out. “You might’ve noticed that I’m not from here.”  
“I caught that,” he said with a nod.  
“Well, I’ve had a visa while attending university as a postgraduate student. I’m a Rhodes Scholar, you see.”

He stares blankly into her face, and she swiftly explains.

“It’s an academic thing. The idea is that you go to another country, and gain valuable knowledge that you take back to your place of origin. Well, after a lot of thought, my plan was to stay here – because everyone who matters…mattered in my life, is here. And…” she paused.  
“And it’s just better if I never go back to Brighton.”

Unwilling to pry, Clyde nodded, letting her move on without comment. She shifts uncomfortably in her seat, rubbing her hand absentmindedly. 

“Since I was marrying Poe, I thought that it was probably a good time to apply for my green card. Eventually, I was planning on trying for full citizenship, but you’re to have a job or a spouse or something like that so the government knows it’s a good idea to…keep you around. And I’ve graduated, so – I’m supposed to go back, now. You see, I don’t have an officially proper reason to stay.”  
Her voice cracks, and her face turns a color that reminds Clyde of Elmer's Glue. 

“Excuse me, but where’s your lady’s room?”

Unwilling to risk having to get the mop and industrial-grade floor disinfectant back out, Clyde gives her a brief set of directions. Rey quickly exits the office, and he’s left with everything she’s said. It sits heavy in his stomach. There’s something itching at the back of his brain, too - not unlike the phantom limb he can feel sometimes. 

It had been the moment when she’d told him she was cursed that resonated – continued to resonate.  
This was something they shared; something that aligned with so much of what he’d been through.  
And Clyde doesn’t believe in coincidence.  
Doesn’t believe that a woman like Rey Kenobi can just coincidentally show up in his bar, all but spit in his face, and then leave him wanting to protect her.  
Maybe even kiss her senseless.  
But there it is.

Slowly, an idea comes to him.  
At first, he rejects it.  
People already say the Logans aren’t very bright – no need to give ‘em more ammunition.  
Then, after a few seconds of more consideration, he’s afraid of it. 

Clyde lets his mind wander to the moment when he’d picked Rey up from where she’d slumped over the table. He’d carried her, stretched out in his arms, to his office and had gently deposited her on the old couch – there simply wasn’t an alternative unless he was comfortable with leaving her there.  
And he was not. 

The woman still smelled ripe with vodka, but he’d caught a momentary whiff of her hair.  
It was like getting clocked upside the head, but not in an altogether unpleasant way. 

When Clyde was a kid, his Mama had grown lots of plants – had worked the dirt behind their rental house until she could coax tomatoes, sunflowers, cucumbers, and peppers from the soil. 

In the summer she’d line their porch with petunias. The sweet smell would greet him first thing in the morning as he headed outdoors with Jimmy and Mel. At sundown, when the three of them had finally exhausted themselves, the same scent would wrap around their bodies and pull them home. 

Her hair smelled like that – like petunias and home.  
No. Coincidences are not part of Clyde’s belief system. 

Rey finally returns, and he can tell she’s had a chance to clean up a little bit. Her hair is neatly pulled back, and despite feelin’ off, her face looks clean and bright. She smiles at him, and he chokes on his tongue before he can speak. 

“You actually have a really nice place. It’s…friendly,” she observes, thoughtfully.  
Clyde clears his throat, and looks intently at his feet.  
“Cauliflower,” he whispers to himself.  
Rey tilts her head to the side.  
“What?”  
“Um, you ever heard of Occam’s razor?”  
She blinks.  
“Maybe. I don’t remember,”  
“Lex parsimoniae, in the Latin.”  
“Oh. Ok.” 

Clyde shifts again, and his heartbeat picks up.  
“It means that the simplest solution is probably the right one. So, here’s what I’m thinkin’. I could give you a job here. I mean, until you find somethin’ else.”  
He can feel Rey’s grin.  
“That’s – that’s the sweetest, Clyde. The problem is, you can likely get someone from around here to tend bar, or whatever else you need done. If I were to stay because of employment, it would probably have to be a specialized position that only I could fill.”  
He looks up forlornly, cursing her word choice and reprimanding that part of his psyche imagining Rey in specialized positions that have nothing to do with her employment status.  
“I don’t suppose you know of anyone who needs a theoretical physicist?”  
“Nope, don’t s’pose I do.” 

There’s another beat of awkward quiet between them as Rey sits down. Clyde fixes his eyes back on the floor. That’s the only way he’s going to be able to say what he’s fumbling towards next.

“Well, maybe you can marry someone. You know – just until you’ve got things handled with immigration.”  
Rey chuckles in disbelief.  
“I’m afraid that’s easier said than done. Do you know anyone who’s looking for something akin to a mail-order bride? A complete emotional wreck of a mail-order bride, at that?”  
He coughs again, and there’s silence.  
Clyde gives the woman a beat or two so she can put together what he’s suggesting.  
When he finally hears a quiet little sound of realization, he knows she’s figured it out.  
“You mean…?”  
“Yeah. Me.”  
Somehow – miraculously - he’s finally found the nerve to look into her wide gold-green eyes.

“Me and you…we could get married – fake-married – and then you can stay. Until you get a good job doin’…whatever a person does with a degree in physics.”  
Rey throws a short, punctuated laugh into the air. 

“You’d…you’d do that? For someone who threw up on your shoes? I just…I’ve been such a cunt…”

He jolts at the word. It’s not something he’d ever call someone, even if he was angry. Certainly, he wouldn’t apply it to Rey. Taking a deep breath, he bolsters himself and continues. 

“Now, listen. I’m an honorable man. I’m not lookin’ to take advantage of you. It’s not that kinda deal. I just,” he pauses again before continuing slowly. 

“What you said before? About being cursed? I have some experience with curses…and I’ve gotten kinda good at dealing with ‘em. Maybe even breakin’ ‘em. And I – I want to help you.” 

Clyde can’t remember the last time he’s spoken so much for such an extended period of time, or has left himself so vulnerable. He’s made it a point, ever since getting his arm blown off, to not give folks a chance to screw around with him. He’s learned to make drinks one-handed, and can hold his own in a fight when he needs to. 

Nevertheless, he hopes in this moment that Rey isn’t going to give him hell – that even if she walks out of his bar right now, she’ll at least remember that someone – some strange-lookin’ bartender – was kind to her. 

That might be enough right there – to get her through her troubles. 

“Yes.”

He’s launched back from his reverie by her soft, certain response. 

“Yes, I’ll do it. And…and I’ll find a way to make it up to you.”

Rey reaches out her hand to shake his, but she stops halfway through the motion and simply holds his shaking fingers

“I don’t know why you’re being so kind – God knows I don’t deserve it. But…I promise…I promise that I will make this up to you. In a respectable way, of course.” 

Clyde’s mouth goes dry, and his stomach flips upside down.  
In this moment, he doesn’t want respectable.  
He just wants her. 

 

*******

 

Several things happen the next day. 

Rey shows up at her former place of residence around 10 a.m. and knocks respectfully on the door.  
She doesn’t have to – after all, she still has a key and a name on the mailbox – but someone is with her, ready to help load cardboard boxes gleaned from liquor stores and filled with her things into the bed of a white F-150. 

On their drive towards the city, the truck’s tailpipe sputters out a few loud sounds that make Rey nearly jump out of her skin.  
Clyde chuckles despite himself.  
They’ve spent the whole night in his office, sketching out plans, researching government forms, and going over official procedures. His time in the military was a surprising advantage – he’d gained a knack for understanding the discourse of governmental legalese. 

Clyde is quiet, she notes – sometimes even awkward – but Rey can tell that he’s smarter than he knows. 

It’s a wonder that Clyde’s PC isn’t smoking with use when they’re finished.  
However, instead of feeling exhausted, her nerves have her strung tight enough to refuse the tea Clyde offers to make her from a dusty little packet of Lipton’s he's got stashed in his desk. 

She’d been dreading this moment – the one where she has to see Poe long enough to tell him that she’s leaving for good. 

“Oh my God, Rey, where have you been? I’ve been scared out of my mind,” Poe exclaims as he swings open the apartment door. It takes him a second to realize Clyde is standing behind his ex-fiancé, and then his face morphs into something between anger and astonishment.

“And who the hell are you?”  
Clyde just glowers at him, slack-jawed and unsure of what to do. Rey takes notice of this, and responds for him.  
“He’s the man I’m marrying.”  
Poe nearly goes down in shock.  
“The fuck…?”  
“Hey, watch your language in front of the lady,” Clyde barks, suddenly bolder than he thought he’d be.  
“I’m here for my things,” Rey says, pushing past the now-shaking man wearing nothing but a bathrobe along with his horrified expression.  
“What do you mean, ‘marrying’?” Poe shouts as he follows them through the living room.  
“Is this supposed to be revenge or something?”

Clyde keeps moving, but takes a second to look around. A low whistle leaves his mouth before he can stop it and he seems unsettled. Suddenly, Rey is sorry she’s brought her new - friend? fiancé? – to this specific place for this particular task. 

Poe’s apartment, with its pristine wooden floors and fine art hanging on the walls, suddenly overwhelms her. 

Rey doesn’t want it to matter that she’s relied so much on someone who she thought was going to take care of her – doesn’t want to admit how easy she’d fallen into the trap of unthinking comfort.  
It was like any other addiction, she supposed – it crept up on you gradually, like a physical complaint that becomes an illness.

She feels her cheeks burn, horrified by the impression she must be giving Clyde. 

Clearing his throat, the tall man lumbering along just behind her follows Rey towards her room.  
“I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into,” he mutters.  
“My place isn’t…fancy. You won’t like it.”  
She smirks.  
“Are you sure? Because I think it might be preferable to living in a den of lies with a man who broke my heart, Clyde.”  
“I s’pose that’s true, Rey.” 

*******

They enter what has been exclusively her space for the past couple of weeks; it had been the formal guestroom before…everything. Rey hadn’t been willing to keep sleeping in the master bedroom once she was finally capable of scraping herself out of bed to the point of normative functionality. 

Clyde surveys boxes full of clothes, books, and other miscellaneous stuff. It’s the ephemera of a life, and it’s all coming with them. One plastic bin is filled with old computer parts. To his left, what looks like a collection of dissected transistor radios and iPods sit splayed out in a hundred different pieces on a workbench.  
“This stuff comin’ too?”  
“If you don’t mind,” she answers sheepishly.  
“Sorry about all the bits and bobs. I’m kind of…um, a scavenger, I suppose? I like taking things apart – putting them back together in a way that’s better than I found them. Give me a minute, and I’ll get to lifting all this stuff. If you can just get the doors, I’ve got the rest.”

The implication of Rey’s words awkwardly float around them. 

Clyde looks down his long nose at her with dark eyes that spark. 

He makes a deep sound in the back of his throat, then picks up the plastic tub with little effort, gripping the side with his right arm and balancing the brunt of the weight on the palm of his metal prosthetic.  
She bites her lip, and nods.  
Point taken.  
And, Gods, but he’s strong.  
Momentarily, she stops to admire her companion’s physique as he exits the room.  
All long limbs, muscles, and strange beauty…  
But Rey quickly shakes herself.  
She and Clyde - they won’t…can’t have that kind of relationship. 

*******

By late afternoon, Rey has made herself at home in a doublewide nestled between the woods and a small hill just half a mile west of the Danville city limits. It’s been fixed to the earth with a concrete foundation, and Clyde tells her that during the winter months he barters with a local farmer for hay bales to place around the sides for extra insulation. 

It’s a cozy home that reminds Rey of the bar’s office; there’s another ugly little couch and vintage wood paneling. Low ceilings and venetian blinds remind Rey that she is indeed a long way from the chic apartment in Charleston. Clyde was right when he said that there was nothing “fancy” about his abode. 

But it is not a hole-in-the-wall.  
And it is perfect in that it does not remind her of Poe. 

Despite Rey’s quiet approval, Clyde races around the place; he hides a laundry basket half-filled with dirty socks and boxers.  
He moves with surprising speed through his kitchen, all but tossing dirty dishes out of sight. 

Rey brings her things in from the truck, telling him not to worry about any preexisting chaos.  
He wasn’t expecting company, after all. 

“We’re going to be flat mates, so we’ll likely see lots of each other’s messes.” 

“I was hopin’ to give you a nice first impression, though.”

“Oh, like the one I gave you at your bar?” 

“Hush.” 

She laughs hard – much too hard for such a simple moment.

That night, Rey falls asleep in an unfamiliar bed with nothing to wake her but the sounds of owls and an occasional soft snoring that drifts through the dark, quiet house. 

Rey doesn’t feel alone and frightened for the first time in days.


	4. I’ve Been Taking My Life in My Hands (And I’ve Been Making New Plans)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mellie looks up, her shaping shears sill and unmoving over the head of a woman with bright violet-colored hair.  
> Her eyes widen, and her easy smile slides off the side of her face.  
> “Clyde, what’s going on?”  
> He clears his throat as if something’s stuck there.  
> She knows that he’s nervous because this was the time-wasting mechanism he used when they were kids.  
> Clear your throat, then think of something to say.  
> “I’m getting’ married. To a girl.”
> 
>  
> 
> Note: I'm back from New York, cats and kittens!  
> I am refreshed and I've had lots of time to think about what's going to transpire for saintly sad bartender and confused vodka-loving physicist. Ah, my poor dears!  
> This chapter does a lot of work, but I hope you'll hang in there.  
> Emotional turmoil and reveals ahoy! 
> 
> *****************************************

It’s eight o’clock in the evening when Jimmy Logan gets a phone call on his cell. He’d just taken Sadie back to her Mama’s house in Lynchburg. To top that all off, he’s managed to avoid any awkward conversations and his ex’s dimwitted husband. Life is pretty good; he’s currently thinking about the cold beer and pre-season game calling from his tiny apartment. 

Jimmy is surprised to find that it’s Clyde phoning in from Danville – despite having been gone from his home turf for a bit, he could swear that Thursday evenings were still when Clyde took night shifts at The Duck Tape.  
He doesn’t usually call Jimmy while he’s on the clock.  
Maybe he’d thrown another Molotov Cocktail into some asshole’s car. Jimmy smiles to himself and accepts the call, hoping for the best. 

“Hey, little brother. What’s shakin’?”  
There is silence for a moment, then Clyde’s deep unsure voice responds.  
“I need to call a family meetin’.”  
“Oh yeah? What’s goin’ on?”  
“I’m marryin’ a girl so she can get her green card.”  
Jimmy is speechless; Clyde fills the dead air.  
“I’ll be at the house when you get in.”

The line goes dead. 

For a moment, Jimmy just sits in his truck. He’s too stunned to think, but when he finally can, he’s damn near ready to throw a fit.  
Clyde wasn’t an idiot, but he was sure as hell acting like one.  
Didn’t he know how these things usually worked out?  
Wasn’t that lady FBI agent they’d had to outsmart enough of a lesson?  
Clyde had gone all googley-eyed for her too, and it had nearly gotten them all busted.  
For somebody who’s lived through a war and has successfully helped his brother pull off a major heist, Clyde acts awfully innocent – or just simple.  
People regularly assume the later more than the former. 

Lynchburg is precisely four hours and thirteen minutes from Danville; that’s if you’ve got light traffic, take all the major highways, and you don’t stop to pee.  
He makes it there in three. 

 

*******

On Thursday afternoon, Clyde takes his first trip to a beauty parlor.  
He’s never actually been to the place where his sister works as a hairdresser. That’s on account of her always comin’ to the bar, either to have a drink or lower his ears every few weeks.

“If it weren’t for me, you’d look like a bushman,” she’d always tell him with a smile.

Mel was a good kid, even if she did drive too fast and gossip too much. It wasn’t all bad, knowing that your little sister was good at running the rumor mill. It had been something of a defense mechanism Mellie had developed after Clyde came home from the army. If you were the one telling the stories, no one could make ‘em up about you…or your one-armed brother with PTSD. 

Besides, she’d been born and raised in Danville. Her clientele knew that she was home grown, and that kept ‘em loyal. Instead of driving half an hour down towards the city, they just went to Mellie who could do a better job for half as much money as most of those fancy salons charged.  
Plus, anyone who sat in Mellie’s chair got all the latest news. 

All, except for news concerning the Logans. Mellie was tight-lipped about her brothers, and if anyone so much as mentioned either Jimmy or Clyde’s name with an air of derision, she’d kick ‘em out of her chair – didn’t matter if their hair was finished or not. 

It only took a couple women with half-done perms being booted out of the establishment for everyone to realize, once and for all, that Mellie Logan meant business. 

Growing up with her brothers had also given Mellie lots of experience with cars – when Jimmy was under the hood of this Ford or that Camino during her childhood, Mellie was there to help him. Since then, her niece Sadie had taken up Mellie’s station as Jimmy’s flashlight-holder and wrench-finder. That being said, she was still better at driving a manual transmission than either one of her brothers ever would be. 

“Hey there, Clyde,” Mellie drawls as she looked toward the door where her brother stands, fixing the entire room with a thousand-yard stare.  
“What brings you to my little corner of the world?” 

His gaze finally settles on Mellie, and he's having a hard time finding words. Several other pairs of eyes are trained on him. He feels strangely like a raccoon trapped up a tree by hounds of various shapes and sizes. 

“I need to call a family meetin’.”  
“Oh yeah? What fer?”

More silence. Mellie looks up, her shaping shears sill and unmoving over the head of a woman with bright violet-colored hair. Her eyes widen, and her easy smile slides off the side of her face.

“Clyde, what’s going on?”  
He clears his throat as if something’s stuck there. She knows that he’s nervous because this was the time-wasting mechanism he used when they were kids. Clear your throat, then think of something to say.  
“I’m getting’ married. To a girl.”  
The air leaves the room in a soundless gust, and Mellie Logan finds herself gasping.  
No one dares to move.  
Clyde notes the sea-change, and clears his throat again, sheepish but undeterred.  
“We should all of us talk about it. I’ll be at the house.”  
And with that, he turns on his heels and walks away from the shop.

As soon as his shadow is no longer darkening the door, the place erupts into a flurry of speculation.  
“Shut it!” Mellie barks.  
“Else I’ll make sure y’all are missing one eyebrow by the end of the day!”

The room goes quiet, and all that can be heard is Mellie growling “goddammit” repeatedly under her breath. 

******

At eight o’clock, a cherry red 1969 Chevy Camaro with chrome detailing polished to a high shine arrives on Clyde’s lawn. Around five minutes later, a beat-up old Chevy truck pulls into the yard as if the driver is trying to outrun fear itself.  
There are lots of things that Clyde doesn’t know…but his sibling’s reactions, instincts, and inner-workings are not on that list. 

He’s timed it all just right. 

Rey, for her part, is sitting on his couch and looks good enough to eat.  
Better, actually.  
He’d given her the day to prepare for this moment. They were absolutely going to need Jimmy and Mellie’s help. It was one thing to tell everyone else he and Rey had gotten hitched, but there’d be no fooling his brother and sister.  
Where others saw Clyde as unknowable, his big brother and baby sister could read him like a damn book. 

No, all three of ‘em had to be in on this, or it wouldn’t work.  
The grown Logan children still suck together like tar, and it was that loyalty Clyde was counting on. No matter how much they might not like what Clyde and Rey were up to, he was willing to bet dollars to donuts that they’d help him out. 

For her part, Rey's face transforms with terror as the engine noises die.  
Her instincts aren’t wrong – he knows that she’s right to be nervous.  
Her part in this play involves trying to appear diplomatic.  
“They’re going to think the worst of me right off, aren’t they?” she’d asked Clyde with a tight, sad smile.  
“I’m the manipulative foreigner trying to trap a husband.”  
“But you’re not, little scavenger,” he’d soothed.  
“We’ll make 'em understand you’re not.”  
Rey had laughed at the nickname, and then returned her attention to rummaging through another plastic bin of clothing.  
She’s wearing an outfit she calls “respectable” –her narrow shoulders are covered by a pink button-up cardigan that’s been laid carefully over a grey shirtdress that poofs out a little like a bell where it hits her knees. Rey has chosen to wear her hair in a bun which is gathered neatly at the base of her neck.

Clyde notes that the little woman, so rigid in his living room, strikes a much different picture than the other women in Boone county.  
Every weekend, he sees two varieties of ladyfolk; first off, there’s the kind that are pretty in all the conventional ways. Their nails are carefully done in bright colors and shine in the light. They’ve got highlights, lowlights, glosses, and dyes all up in their hair.  
They wear lipstick shades called things like “Flamingo Pink” and “Caribbean Coral.”  
The smell of Aqua Net and Juicy Couture wafts off of their tan skin towards his face as he’s pouin’ ‘em their vodka.  
They like to flirt after a drink or two, but Clyde’s gotten wise over the years.  
They think he’s fine for a quick fix. However, none of them girls ever really want to start anything with Jimmy Logan’s little one-armed brother.  
The second kind he’s used to – well, they’ve lived in Danville too long. They’re worn down, and their eyes’ve gone dead. He’s taken a tumble or three with those women – especially right after he’d gotten home from Iraq.  
He now knows that misery does love company.  
The problem is, he isn’t miserable enough to want that kind of companionship anymore. 

Clyde’s been out of Danville plenty, and he’s met lots of people – but if he’s ever met anyone like Rey, he can’t remember it.  
She’s sitting there on the striped couch he’d nabbed from Aunt Liddy’s old house, and her limbs are arranged just so; her eyes are wide as saucers and staring straight ahead.  
She’s nothing like the persnickety lush he’d fought with at the bar.  
No, there is nothing about Rey right now that suggests anything but propriety; she’s all buttoned, coiffed, and poised.  
Clyde can see the rise and fall of her chest where her heart must be hammering away.  
He wants to calm her; tell her everything’s going to be fine…but there’s another urge he can’t shake. 

The Leatherman pocket knife in the back of his jeans, he finds himself thinking, would make quick work of every button on her dress.  
For a moment, Clyde allows himself to consider what it would be like - unwrapping her like a beautiful gift. How her skin would feel between his lips, his teeth – but he stops himself.  
She’s his guest after all, and he’s an honorable man.  
Nevertheless, Clyde knows that he’s gonna need a cold shower later.

*******

 

The middle Logan braces himself, and hears stomping coming up the porch.  
Then, quick as that, Jimmy’s in the house.  
There is no polite pretense. He just slams in through the front door with Mellie right behind him. Clyde is positioned in the middle of the living room, Rey sitting just behind him on the couch.  
When Jimmy sees Clyde, he starts yelling. 

“What in the name of Jesus tap-dancing Christ do you mean you are gettin’ married? And what do you mean ‘she needs a green card’?”

“He didn’t tell me that part,” comes Mellie’s dry rejoinder from behind her brother. 

Both of them noticed Rey at the same time.  
Mellie folds her arms over her chest, and adjusts her knee so that it’s kicking out to one side.  
As for Jimmy, his mouth drops open – in outrage or shock, Clyde can’t tell. 

“H-hello,” Rey says in a voice so soft that it’s hard to hear.  
“I-I know that this isn’t ideal? But, um, I'm Rey and...it really is nice to meet you.” 

Shocked silence follows, but Mellie regains her wits quicker than Jimmy does.  
“Ah, hiya there Rey. What the hell are you trying to pull over on my brother?”

Jimmy, still flummoxed, looks directly in Rey’s direction and breathes out through his nose. 

“Clyde here, besides bein’ my little brother, is a veteran of the United States armed forces. Did you know that? Now, I don’t know what that means where you’re from…”

“Brighton,” Rey says, chirping the name out helpfully.  
“I’m from Brighton…which…is in the UK.” 

“Right. Brighton. Don’t know what it means to serve where you’re from,”

“We have Armistice Day, Mr. Logan. I’m quite aware of what it means.”

“…But here? We respect those who serve, and that means we don’t like to see ‘em manipulated or used.” 

“I’m not trying to use anyone,” Rey begins, her register rising. 

“Shut it, everybody,” Clyde puts his right hand up in the air, eyeing his siblings with consternation. He lets out a huff, then looks toward Rey.

“This is a family meetin’ and we’re going to be civil. Now, I’m going to tell y’all about what has transpired in the last fourty-eight hours, and you are going to back the hell off of Rey.”

“She’s not family,” Jimmy scowls.

“Not yet she ain’t…but she’s gonna be.” 

The two other Logan siblings look as if they are about to unleash a storm into Clyde’s living room. However, at the behest of their brother they quiet down so that he can explain. Again, he isn’t used to speaking so much or for very long. However, he is thankful that in this moment his voice and brain have not failed him in tandem. That’s something, at least. 

Clyde recounts the scene at the bar. He tries to soften the edges in his retelling of events – for example, he tries to leave out the part where Rey gets real angry and yells at ‘im. But the woman herself isn’t having it.

“Look, you’ve got to know the truth of it all if you’re to trust me.”  
With that, she fills in all of the less flattering bits about her interactions with Clyde – including the moment when she dubbed him the Danville Sasquatch. 

Jimmy still looks pissed, but the corner of Mellie’s mouth turns up just a little.

Clyde tells his brother and sister about his offer to help Rey out, and he tells them about her degree, her education - all the ways in which she is an accomplished and good person.  
Rey counters with the truth of her situation...including the ex-fiancé. 

When they’ve both stopped speaking, neither Mellie nor Jimmy speaks for a moment.  
Finally, the eldest Logan clears his throat, and starts in.

“Clyde, you’re not stupid…but this is one of the dumber ideas you’ve had.”

Tension becomes heavy, and everyone in the room is nearly flattened under the weight.  
Jimmy continues. 

“I know women like her, little brother. They’ll use you up and leave you as soon as they can! How do you know she isn’t just here for…for…I don’t know, your insurance benefits? Your pension? And," Jimmy pauses for a moment, cocking his head to one side knowingly.  
"Perhaps other assets you may have acquired? And - and what the hell do you think is gonna happen if you get caught lyin’?”

“We won’t be,” Clyde insists.  
“We’re goin’ down to the courthouse to get it all done proper. And we’ll learn everything we need to about each other. Just like any other married couple.”

Rey flinches, her cheeks flushing apple blossom pink. Clyde checks himself – he had been careless with the phrasing of this pronouncement, and he knows it. Of course she doesn’t want this to be real.  
How could she? 

This is the last though he manages to have before there’s a mighty pounding at the door of his house. All four heads shoot in the same direction, and suddenly the damn thing swings open again (he was going to have to fix the hinges after tonight) and that damnable Poe is standing there with a woman he’d never seen before.

“Poe! Jess! What are you doing here?”

Rey’s jaw has dropped, and he can see rage building in her eyes.

“HOW are you here? I never told either one of you anything about where I was going!”

“Rey!” Poe shouts from the doorframe.

“Rey, you have to come with us right now. You…I don’t know what’s happening, but you can’t just marry this guy for your green card.”

“Hon, come home. You can stay with me until everything is sorted out,” Jess pleads from her place on the steps outside. 

“That’s not how this works,” Rey yells.  
“You don’t get to toss me out like rubbish and then tell me what to do!”

She’s distressed, and the cracking in Rey’s voice does something to Clyde Logan. He places himself between Rey and Poe – the intruder is a mite smaller than either Jimmy or himself, and this fancy ass city boy is not taking Rey anywhere. 

Poe backs up, going a bit pale when he realizes that Clyde has gone on defense. In what Clyde can only assume is an attempt to deescalate the situation, Poe places his hand in front of his own chest in an exaggerated show of contrition. 

“You’re right, but you’re still our sunshine…and you’re still someone I care about, and I’m not going to just let you marry this rando from Boone County!”

“And why shouldn’t I, Poe Dameron? He’s nothing but good and kind!”

“Um, as in kind of hot?” Jess interjects.

“You’re not helping!” Poe yells at his accomplice before turning back to Rey. 

“Because,” Poe says in a calm, serious voice.

“He’s done time, Rey. You’re about to marry someone with a record.”


	5. It's All Wrong, But It's All Right

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Glory be to God for dappled things –  
> For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;  
> For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;  
> Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;  
> Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;  
> And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim. 
> 
> All things counter, original, spare, strange;  
> Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)  
> With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;  
> He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:  
> Praise him.
> 
> \--Gerard Manley Hopkins
> 
> Author's Note: Ah! A poem! Ah! A mystery! Time for things to start heating up a bit, cats and kittens. ;)
> 
>  
> 
> *****************************************

Her mind reels like something caught in a funnel cloud. 

It had likely been the pack of gum. 

Rey’d needed to use the loo somewhere between the outskirts of Danville and Clyde’s place. Her companion had pulled his truck over into the parking lot of a Sinclair station squarely located on Main Street, and she’d run in.  
Rey always hated using the facilities without buying anything; she’d picked up cinnamon flavored Trident and charged it to her credit card. Her teeth were still unbrushed since the day before, after all.  
She’d only been thinking about keeping her breath from smelling like sour milk.  
Certainly she did not carefully consider the use of her credit card….which she now ruefully realizes is still linked to an account she shares with Poe.  
It had been an honest mistake. Rey had been tired, so out of habit she had just…made the purchase without a second thought.  
And now here’s Poe, cocking up her life again because she didn’t want to be rude. 

Rey bites her lip, tamping down her rage.  
That’s the only way her ass hat of an ex could’ve known where she was at…unless he’s having her phone traced. 

Both are, she admits to herself, equally possible.  
He had never been a controlling partner, but she also knew Poe Dameron to be a determined kind of person.  
Of course he’d come looking for her.  
Perhaps it was a left-over inclination related to what they had been.  
She still had those, too.  
However, such concerns had no place in the roles they played in each other’s lives now.  
That was bloody certain. 

“Rey! Did you hear me? He’s…this person has been in jail. You need to come with us now!”

No one speaks, although Jimmy looks ready to murder someone – his face is a strange shade of beet red. Until now, she’s never considered such pigmentation a possibility where human skin tone’s concerned.  
Mellie has moved across the room so that she can stand beside Clyde.  
Clyde…who looks like he’s just been kicked in the face. 

“Poe,” Rey says quietly, keeping her voice as steady.  
“How did you find me?”

Jessika has moved into the house by this point, and even though she stands behind Poe, her hands are squarely set on her hips. Seeing her expression is like looking into a storm. 

“Tell her, Poe,” Jess orders.  
“Better she hears it from you.” 

“Rey…sunshine…”  
The disgruntled man pulled himself back and bites his lip.  
“After you left yesterday, I felt like…well, I started going through the process of shutting down your access to our joint account. I looked at the purchasing records, first thing.”

“What?”  
The sharp anger that’s become her close companion within the last month pops up through her lungs and threatens to exit her in the form of a howl. Instead, Rey manages to dig her nails into the meat of her palm. 

“Well, I didn’t know what was happening! You just showed up to move your shit out and told me you were marrying some one-armed dude I’ve never met! For all I know, you were both going to steal every cent I’ve got!”

Jimmy starts to say something, but Rey speaks up first.

“You…you don’t get to talk about him like that,” she grits out.  
Her nose wrinkled and her face bloomed into a fierce snarl. 

“What should I think, Rey?” Poe continued, seemingly unable to read the room.  
“So, I looked at the purchase you’d made at…a gas station, I think? And then I called the Boone County Sheriff’s Office,”

“You what?” Jimmy shouted.

“I called the sheriff, and it didn’t take very long to narrow down where you were at and who you were with after that. Apparently, this family is…infamous.” 

“Oh, I will kick your sorry ass for this, whoever you are…” was Jimmy’s only reply. He drew back his hand into a fist, starting for Poe, who ran back onto the porch. 

Quick on her feet, Mellie nearly pole-vaults across the room so that she could come between her oldest brother, and the door frame that kept Poe just out of range. 

“Stop it, y’all! Don’t make this worse,” she yells. 

Rey finally manages to catch Clyde’s eyes.  
It’s a challenge, because his head is hanging low; dark long hair falls over his face, effectively hiding him from everyone. She moves closer to him, and sets her head level with his so that she that she can look directly at him, despite the curtain he’s made for himself.  
She knows shame when she sees it.  
That, too, has become her companion. 

“Clyde?”

She keeps her voice soft.

“Clyde, I know that you probably didn’t have time to tell me about any of this. But can you now?” 

“I didn’t murder nobody or nothin’ like that,” he mutters, though whether it’s to himself or to her, she can’t tell. He makes the soft dark noise in the back of his throat that she’s gotten used to hearing when he’s thinking about something.  
Rey sighs. 

“No, I don’t suppose you do seem much like an ax murderer,” she replies, giving him a brief smile.

He’s quiet for a minute, then lifts his head.  
He slowly manages a resigned expression as he lets his hair fall back, fixing it in an effort to make sure it’s covering his ears.

“That’s better,” she tells him, and he nods. 

“Did y’see the funny handle on the steering wheel of m’truck that we took to Charlottesville yesterday?” 

“Yes, I did.”

“Well, I’m supposed to have one of those whenever I drive…because…it…it lets me steer easier.”  
Rey nods before he continues.  
As far as she’s concerned, there’s no one in the room except for them in this moment.  
If the world were kinder – better, that’s exactly how it would be. 

“I was drivin’ a car that I shouldn’t a’been and I…kind’a took out the wall of a convenience store. I got three months for…for destruction of property and reckless drivin’. Wouldn'ta been so long, 'cept...well, The Curse.”

Rey is quiet, noting to herself that Clyde’s accent gets thicker when he’s upset – much like her own. 

“I…I served my time up in the county jail. That’s probably why yer ex found me so easy. There aren’t a lot of one-armed bartenders around here who’ve done time.”

She shakes her head in disbelief, then looks around at the rest of the room. The scene is still much as it had been before, except that Jimmy and his sister are staring intently at Rey and Clyde. Jessika is poised at the door now, and Poe is peaking around her shoulder from outside. 

Rey crosses her arms, staring down all four people in the room with a glare that she hopes resembles that of an angry harpy, all hellfire and atomic energy. 

“I’ve had about enough of you lot.”  
She hears her voice fraying the end of her words, and winces.  
Gods above, she’s going to cry again. 

“Poe, I don’t understand why you’ve so intent on having me come back when you’ve got Finn and have smashed my heart to bits, thank you very much. If you’re feeling guilt – good. But you can take your guilt and shove it up your arse. And Jess, you should’ve known better than to come here with him.”

Taking a moment to steady her breathing, she continues, looking directly at both Logan siblings. 

“And you two – acting like Clyde isn’t capable of thinking for himself. Are you being loyal, or just trying to control him?” 

Tears are now threatening to spill beyond her lashes, and her voice hitches in an utter betrayal. 

“All I know…is that I was a right cunt to this man. I…I yelled at him and threw up on his bloody fucking shoes! And you know what? He still wanted to help me because…that’s the kind of person he is. He takes pity on…strange unlovable broken people, and helps them. And…and he’s better than all of us!”

The sound of her own heart fills her ears again as her composure breaks. 

With a sob, Rey runs into her room and slams the door.  
She’s not naive enough to think that this the end of it; there will still be Jimmy and Mellie to win over. Poe, who has now cut her off from any and all financial resources, will still need to be dealt with.  
Jess will have to be mollified with an explanation and maybe an apology.  
But for now, she needs to cry – not just for herself, but for the gentle fractured man she can’t deny she feels something for. 

 

*******

Rey wakes to soft knocking. She realizes that her body’s been slumped over the side of her bed while her lower half is seated oddly on the floor. 

“Come in,” she manages. 

Slowly, the door opens and Mellie makes her way into the darkened room. It must be well past ten.  
Rey can feel the lateness of the hour.

“Can I turn on a light?”

She snorts.

“Sure, if you can stand looking at me right now. I must be a sight…”

A standing lamp near the door clicks on, and Rey can see that Mellie’s holding a big green plate with a sandwich on it. 

“Clyde says he hasn’t seen you eat anything since you’ve been here. You’ll…you’ll feel better with somethin’ in your stomach.” 

Rey nods, getting up from her place on the floor. Mellie hands her the plate, and Rey graciously accepts it with a muttered “thanks.” It’s ham on rye with a good thick layers of swiss, lettuce, and a tomato. She’s never seen anything better, and Rey dives into the offering immediately. As she eats, Mellie takes a look around the room, then sits down on the end of Rey’s bed. 

“Jimmy used to sleep in here,” she mentions offhandedly.  
“It’s smaller’n Clyde’s room…but the light’s better.” 

Rey nods, barely listening as she rips through her dinner. She can hear Mellie sigh, and she looks up to see the other woman looking rather intently at her own shoes. 

“Rey…I’m sorry about…well, no I’m not ‘sorry’ exactly, but…I hope that you can understand where Jimmy and I are comin’ from.” 

Rey stops mid-chew, and swallows down what’s already lingering in her thankful gob. 

“I think I can. I mean…I know I didn’t exactly come with references. And…I know that you three are very close. Clyde said both of your parents are gone.”

“It’s not just that,” Mellie admitted.  
“Danville…it’s not a forgiving place, and Clyde is…different. Sure, people treat him ok when he’s at the bar. But they can be pretty mean the rest of the time. I do my best to…to keep their gums from flappin’ too often, but folks here are…hard, and they don’t forget.” 

Rey smiles sadly at Mellie, whose big brown eyes (not unlike Clyde’s) are pleading with Rey for something like mercy.

“You’re not wrong,” she continues. 

“We don’t give him enough credit. We should…but Jimmy and me, we’re just overprotective because he’s been through so much. I guess when you’re scared for someone, you do try harder to – you know – make sure that things stay manageable. Safe.” 

Rey feels herself nodding, and takes a moment to finish her sandwich. 

“I didn’t ask him to do this for me. Please know that. It was his suggestion, and I just…I don’t know. I trust him, and I can’t even tell you why.” 

“I have some thoughts about that,” Mellie replies.  
“I’ll let you two work that out, though. Hey, that jerk said something about cutting off your credit card, right?” 

Rey nods solemnly. 

“Asshole,” Mellie adds.  
“How’d you end up mixed up with someone like that?”

She giggles a little, thinking of how Poe had huddled behind Jessika, scared for his life once Jimmy had threatened to box his ears about.

“It’s…a long, sordid tale. And, yeah, I probably ought to find some way to make money for the time being. Until – until things smooth out a bit.” 

“Why don’t you come on down to the salon where I work tomorrow? We need someone to answer the phones on account of our last girl’s run off with some boy from the next town over. What d’you say?”

Rey nods thoughtfully. She needs to start kicking rent money towards Clyde if she’s going to live in his place. Plus, having an income would give her some modicum of independence so that she could buy her own goddamn cinnamon gum.

“That would be kind of you, Mellie. I’ll be there.”

“Good.”  
The other woman grins, and pats Rey’s arm. 

“We gave you a real bad time – so it’s the least I can do.”

Mellie gets off the bed, and walks toward the door.

“Wait,” Rey calls out.  
“Before you go…what…what made you change your mind so quickly? About me, I mean? You were all so angry before.”

Mellie sighs, and rolls her eyes in Rey’s direction.

“If you don’t know then I’m not gonna tell you. Like I said before, y’all will have to work it out yourselves.”

Something about her words sends a jolt through Rey’s body.

As the littlest Logan leaves the room, Rey finally understands. 

*******

Everything feels better the next morning when she finally wakes up in her small sunlit room.  
Rey yawns, and thinks to herself that it might be a good day to retrieve her Volkswagen from The Duck Tape’s parking lot - if Poe hasn’t already had it towed.  
Rey groans, thinking of how she’s eventually going to have to call him in order to have the car’s title transferred. She’s hopeful that he’ll let it go without a struggle. It’s her only vehicle and it doesn’t seem fair to impose on Clyde for rides to and fro.  
Speaking of Clyde…  
There’s the telltale smell of bacon wafting into her room, and she shuffles out of bed. Her blue cotton pajamas are rather modest – they are what she lovingly refers to as her “grammy jams” and so she has no compunctions about padding down the hall to investigate the savory scent of what she hopes is breakfast. 

Hesitantly, she peeks around the corner where she can see the bartender pulling toast off of a metal pan that’s been in the oven. He curses softly under his breath, and waves his hand in the air as if having just burnt himself. 

“Are you ok?” she asks, genuinely concerned.  
His head immediately turns towards her voice, and his jaw falls open. 

“I…I just nearly scorched m’thumb off. And…I made breakfast? I…I didn’t know what you’d like.” 

She crosses the kitchen, finally coming to a halt next to him. The heat from the stove curls into her stomach, and she feels…what does she feel? Comfort? 

Clyde clears his throat, and looks over his long nose at her. She can see the freckles and moles dotting his skin – she’d noticed them before, but now she thinks that maybe they look a little like something beautiful.  
Maybe stars.  
No, not stars.  
Everyone compares beautiful things to stars.  
There was a class she took once – back in Brighton when she’d just started university.  
It was a survey course on major English literary figures, and she’d slept through a good chunk of it. 

But there’d been one day when they’d studied Hopkins, and Rey had decided years later that his poem was the only thing that had been worth a damn to her during the entire quarter. 

Rey smiles up at Clyde, then speaks softly into his ear like she’s telling him a secret.

“Glory be to God for dappled things,” she whispers solemnly, and it is like a prayer. 

He stands stock still for a moment, trying to comprehend what is happening.  
Then he knows.  
She can feel his blood and bones react to his pulse, and there is certainty that falls over both of them.

Carefully, so as not to hurt her, Clyde picks Rey up, placing her bum on the counter opposite the stove.  
In a gentle attempt to stabilize her, he wraps his right arm around her torso, takes a deep breath, then pries her lips open with his tongue.  
Rey quite forgets the bacon because Clyde is absolutely the best thing she’s ever tasted.


	6. Kisses (Sweeter Than Wine)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Rey, you’re amazing…but I want to earn you. Earn this.”
> 
>  
> 
> *********************************
> 
>  
> 
> Author's Note: The whole thing's gone and het up, y'all! I have to apologize for my absence. I've been getting back into the swing of things, and part of that swing involves writing a dissertation and creating a staff for the academic journal I'm trying to manage. I was also quite sick there for a minute - but all things considered, I'm on the up and up now!
> 
> Here's a short steamy chapter to tide you over until we return to hanging out with the Logan siblings and their new...sister-in-law? Hmmm. 
> 
> For those of you playing at home, you might've noticed that my chapter titles = song titles that set the tone of each installment. Here's the track for this bit of the journey: 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bOjr-wIRDA
> 
> Prophetic, perhaps? Double hmm... ;)  
> Right. That's it for now. Ciao, beauties!

*********************************

“Glory be to God for dappled things—" 

Clyde can only think of how much their teeth coming together again and again sounds like cutlery – and of course it does because he’d been so, so hungry. 

With that thought, he pushes the collar of Rey’s sleeping shirt to the side, latching his teeth lightly in the valley between the rise of her throat and the bone of her shoulder. The sound she makes is something like a purr, and it spurns him on. Languidly, he worries the spot with his tongue, lips, and nose. 

Christ, she’s a feast - clothed, in his kitchen, and unwashed on a Friday morning, still smelling of summer air, petunias, and something else that is just…Rey. 

For his own part, every last inch of Clyde’s skin is screaming and filled and fire. It is akin to a cotton ball in flames. But not awful, like the small blistered place on his thumb where a pale half-moon of skin is already raising. 

She is, as he’d assumed, tall but impossibly light. He’s got her lifted a bit off the counter, his right hand fully holding her left ass cheek. It’s pert and firm and made for unspeakable things that he’s already run through his own mind many, many times in the dead of night and during the day while in close proximity to his new…roommate? Fiancé? 

“Details,” Clyde says to himself, before dismissing the thought and grinding his hardness against the hot wetness between the little brunette’s thighs. 

For her own part, Rey has her fist tight in his hair, and she’s already wrapped those snap bean legs around his middle. 

The room is nearly spinning, but that isn’t a surprise; he knows exactly where his blood has gone. His dick pulses between them and, oh good God, he cannot say that he’s an honorable man in this moment.  
No, not at all.

Her other hand has traveled to his jaw and is tracing it’s line like she’s trying to map it, and he wants it in her memory. He wants this in his memory.

“Glory, glory be,” he finally grits out just before she bites gently into his lower lip. 

“Clyde, please, I…”

“Beautiful scavenger, I know what you need…”

And then he stops; his eyes go wide with a realization that he knows he’ll kick himself for later on. He sits Rey down on the counter. Her face, so frenzied a moment before, stills itself into a fall. He’s made her sad, and his heart stutters. 

But this is too good for spoiling.  
She is too good for ruining with haste. 

He takes a step back, unwinding the both of them, and it’s like pulling apart two hot flats of iron in a forge. Somewhere, his bacon is burning, and then he tosses the thought aside. 

“Beautiful scavenger – sweetheart, listen to me…”

In a gesture that he hopes conveys adoration, he lifts her chin with the fingers that have been so recently been against her. The chill of their distance has him shocked a minute, and then he swallows with resolve.

“Did I do something wrong? I…I’m sorry, Clyde.”  
She asks him this question, and his knees nearly give out.

“No!” 

His voice is louder than he means it to be, and he quickly reigns himself back.

“No…God, no. I…I was about t’ask you the same thing.”

He takes a deep breath, locking eyes with her. 

“Rey, look – I…I want you. In the worst way, I want to take you to bed and not let you leave for a week,”

She giggles, nodding and blushing.  
He feels his mouth turning upwards in what he hopes is a grin that is nothing like the cartoon wolves with their jaws full of teeth and their maws dripping saliva.  
She should run.  
He’s a beast, but maybe she knows.  
Maybe she doesn’t mind. 

“…Rey, beautiful Rey,”  
He stops, and kisses her lightly on her head.

“You’ve been through the damn ringer. What happened here last night? With Poe just walkin’ into my house? I couldn’t do anything about that, and neither could you. Not yet.”

With a sigh Rey, bites her lip.

“I…I know, and I hate that he came here. I’m so sorry that he came here.”

“That’s not a bit your fault,” he countered gently.

“Look, I am…bursting inside because you - I can’t…I can’t believe that you just…kissed me. Just like that! I can’t believe that I’m even allowed near something as beautiful as you,”

“Clyde, I…”

“Let me finish,” he mutters, placing a finger against her lips still wet from his.

“If you meant what you said last night – to everyone – then, well, it’s on account of you knowin’ me somehow that I can’t understand. And it’s the kindest thing someone aside from family has ever said ‘bout me in my whole life.” 

Rey lowers her eyes, a little bashful now.

“I was telling the truth, Clyde. I just wanted everyone to know – you’re a truly good and special man.”

A dark chuckle leaves his throat. 

“And if I am to be good – if you are going to trust me, then I…I don’t want things to happen so quick for us.”

Shocked, Rey lifts her head, eyes sparking.

“But I know what I want! You can’t tell me what will and won’t hurt me!”

“No sweetheart, you’re grown. I don’t reckon I can…but please, for me,”

She sets her mouth in a thin line, but makes a motion with her hand that signals to him that he may continue making his case. He can’t help but snort. She’s a sassy gal, for sure. 

“Rey, you’re amazing…but I want to earn you. Earn this.”

He motions between the both of them with his prosthetic, and winces. Rey notices, and grasps for his mechanical extension of self, bringing it to the side of her face and then kissing the fingers. It’s a gesture that stops him and for a moment, he forgets how to breathe.  
Christ, he will ruin her.  
Absolutely take and ruin her, when the time is right. 

Out of a lack for any other gestures, Clyde bends down and places his forehead against hers.

“When I came home after my second tour – when I came back from rehab and tried to settle in here again – tried to have a life it was… awful hard. There are cracks and hurts you don’t know are there until you’ve had some time to sit with ‘em. There’s no way to avoid those, baby. You can’t go around ‘em. You have to go through ‘em. Nothing else for it.”

He swallows hard, and holds her hazel gaze with his. Her own face has gone all soft and glowing as she listens. 

“Rey, you’re healing. And I know how that goes. Little scavenger, I don’t want you to regret this…to regret me.”

“I couldn’t.”

“You can’t say that. You’re only seein’ the now. And Rey,”

He kisses the top of her head, and lays the hallow of his palm onto her cheek. 

“I will be here. I’m not going anywhere. We have this - I promise you that. It isn’t going to burn up or go away. But I want to earn this. Let me help you, and let me earn…this.”

She smiles a true smile up into his chin, and he can feel her nod in agreement. 

“I think that’s fair. I don’t think I’ve met many people who’ve expressed such a…what? Reverence, maybe? But, darling…I must insist…you have got to promise you’ll still kiss me like that. Or I’ll do something regrettable to your person that rather denotes a lack of patience.”

Clyde grins again. His restraint is slipping, and she knows it.  
What she doesn't know – has no idea - is how much he’s going to enjoy making her pay for that later.  
Instead, he breathes her in, and nods. 

“I don’t think anything in the world could stop me.”

He picks her up in his arms, and she squeals as he spins her around. Finally, Clyde lets Rey swing down and places her feet back on the kitchen floor then bends down at the waist, catching his girl’s lips in a gentle tug before she releases them. 

“Clyde, your bacon is burning,” she mutters low between them, punctuating the statement with a kiss on the end of his nose. 

“S’ok, Rey. That’s the way I like it.”


	7. Fastest Girl in Town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You ever done any clerical work?”
> 
> Rey winces, shaking her head.
> 
> “No, ma’am. I’m…well, I’m trained as a physicist.”  
> “What?”  
> “I…just graduated with a degree in physics, ma’am.”
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Author's Note:
> 
> It's a gas to write Mellie and Rey together.  
> Mellie is the only one who seems to have dodged The Curse, so she's an important character in this piece.  
> This chapter finds Rey continuing her efforts to try and make a new life for herself. 
> 
> I'll try to update this work as often as I can, but I may have to cut back to once a week or so. I want to give you all well-developed chapters that are fully realized pieces. You deserve that, and so that's what I will take the time to deliver. 
> 
> Thanks for hanging in there with me, beautiful cats and kittens! I love you!
> 
> ****************************

Fridays are busy at Miss Maz’s Sheer Designs Salon. Rey had no problem finding Mellie Logan, who is decked out in a tight orange mini dress. A matching orange and aqua blue scarf is wrapped headband like through her long honey-brown hair, and Mellie sports matching aqua-colored cowboy boots that come mid-calf. Rey has to admire the way Mellie seems to dress for her personality. She knows that's a hard thing to achieve – she’s never been much good at it, anyway.

For her first day of work, she’s chosen a no-nonsense button-down plaid shirt over dark boot-cut jeans and a pair of sensible flats. Her hair, as per usual, is pulled into another low loose bun at the base of her neck. She’s also done the work of put on mascara and lip gloss in order to give herself a fresh, bright appearance. 

When Rey walks through the big glass door, she is immediately hit with a wall of women’s laughter, the smell of John Paul Mitchell products, and Miranda Lambert belting out a song on the radio by the front counter. The walls of the place are painted a peculiar shade of daffodil yellow, and everything feels cheerful if not a little too bright. Her shirt sleeves are long as is her custom. She can always push them up if she gets too warm, though. She shivers a little, and ruminates on the fact that overheating probably won't be a problem. The air in Sheer Designs is kicked on full-blast. Probably an attempt to keep makeup and hair from melting off or deflating. 

Even though she’s currently brandishing a curling iron and mid-sentence with a customer, Mellie looks up and motions to Rey with a grin. 

“Hey there,” she exclaims happily.  
“Glad you made it over. Clyde give you a ride?” 

Rey smiles, amazed by the contrast between Mellie and her older brother. The young woman has an amiable demeanor and seems at ease with her surroundings. Although there is often subtext in the way she holds herself, the littlest Logan seems to languidly move through her existence. Clyde, by contrast, stops and starts. Sometimes he ambles, and sometimes he walks but there is always thoughtful resignation in his motions. Clyde has mentioned to her that Mellie has somehow kept away from activating The Curse - there's no man in her life to leave her, and she's successfully employed. No horrible sickness or accidents have befallen her, either. He tells Rey all this in a whisper as if trying to keep it a secret from a force that's trying to overhear them. Afterwards, she can't help but notice that he reaches his long arm over the front doorway, and caresses a horseshoe nailed above the frame. 

“To the bar, yes – but I’ve got my car now,” she responds in an attempt to explain her presence.  
“Oh yeah? What’d ya drive?”  
“Ah, the Volkswagen,”

Rey points behind herself through the glass door where her little bug sits in one of the parking spots. Mellie cranes her head and takes a glance. 

“Oooh, vintage. Yeah, that suits ya.” 

By this point, the salon has gone a little quiet. Everyone is listening in to Mellie conversing with the tall British girl. It makes Rey uncomfortable, and she begins thinking of all the things she's heard over the years about living in places the size of Danville. 

“Why Mellie Logan, who is this?”

An older woman with short brown hair and immense glasses comes from the back of the salon, fixing Rey with a skeptical glare.  
“Oh, hey Maz! This is the new girl I was telling you about – Rey Kenobi. She’s gonna watch our phones for us now that Laurie Mae’s run out on us.” 

Maz, though small in stature, has the presence to stop everyone momentarily as she emerges onto the salon floor. She has the aura of a thirty-foot goddess event though she is impossibly short with the bone structure of a bird. Rey swallows hard and reaches out her hand, offering it politely to the tiny woman whom she assumes is her new boss. 

“It’s nice to meet you,” she manages.

“Mellie told me you were looking for someone to mind the phones, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to…find a position.”

Maz takes Rey’s hand, and smiles a little to herself. 

“Ah, yes – you must be the girl I’ve heard so much about.”

There’s a pause while Rey takes in what the woman has said.  
“W-what?”  
Maz chuckles a little bit. 

“The Charles boy was in here gettin’ his usual buzzcut the other day. Told me about some sort of tussle at the bar between Clyde and a girl with an accent. Yesterday, Clyde shows up at my salon and scares Mellie half out of her mind by telling everyone in the place that he’s getting married. I’m old, but I can still put two-and-two together, darlin’.” 

Rey manages a grin and feels a blush creeping up around her neck and into her cheeks.  
Of course he had. 

This was part of the plan, after all. She and Clyde had decided that it was best to spread the word so that everyone would consider their marriage legitimate. Government officials might check up on such things, and they could leave nothing to chance. 

Maz sighs, placing her hands on her hips, still inspecting Rey through large pop-bottle lenses surrounded by bejeweled red plastic frames. 

“You ever done any clerical work?”  
Rey winces, shaking her head.  
“No, ma’am. I’m…well, I’m trained as a physicist.”  
“What?”  
“I…just graduated with a degree in physics, ma’am. Actually, theoretical physics? My thesis was based on the effects of high-bean lasers on alloy metals. ”

Maz and Mellie go wide-eyed, and exchange glances. The shorter, older woman bites her lower lip. Rey’s head spins for a moment as she checks herself, remembering that her audience is probably not impressed with her credentials. There's a good chance they feel patronized in this moment, and she cannot lose this chance at a job. She cannot let Mellie and Clyde down.

“I…I learn quickly! And if you need anything fixed – well, I’m good with gadgets and bits and bobs. I…I can make things work. I’m good at repairing whatever’s broken,” she offers. 

Maz blinks, and the motion is exaggerated due to her glasses.  
“You fix things, eh? Well, well. That makes sense.”  
Rey’s brow creases, and she nods her head.  
“I try to.”

*******

By five in the evening, Rey’s worked a full day. 

She's a nightmare on the phones at first, unable to get the hang of a multi-line system until messing up the seventh or eighth call. Thankfully, Maz is patient enough to go through the whole thing several times – slowly, and without malice. 

It’s easier by far to make appointments for people in the large spiral-bound schedule. As far as she can tell, it’s the closest thing that the salon has to a sacred text. It is made clear to Rey that all beverages and flammables are to be kept clear of the appointment book. It is understood by all that if anything happens to the book of all books, there will be dire consequences and heads will roll. 

As for herself, Rey makes a note to ask if she can computerize Sheer Designs’ schedule at some point. When she’s not taking calls, she manages to part out a broken salon dryer, fine-tune the capacitator and rewire the contraption’s heating elements.

“I’m shocked it hasn’t burnt the place down yet,” she confides to Mellie, who shakes her head in disbelief. 

“Seems you got here just in time. Insurers don’t like to give out money to little old ladies in Danville, after all,” she growls while disinfecting one of her combs in a large glass jar. 

“Sounds like you’ve got some experience with that,” Rey replies.

“Let’s just say I’ve, uh, sponsored Maz a time or two with some of m’own cash. We all of us have.”

With that pronouncement, another woman sporting a pitch-black mile high ‘do with pin curls and decorative clips interrupts their conversation, jumping between Mellie and Rey and dramatically points her scissors above all their heads.

“Last year,” the woman notes loudly, “the roof damn near caved in after a nasty storm. Got it fixed, but it cost us. Shitty insurance company Maz uses called it an ‘act of God.’ Now, I wanna know what the hell kind of God leaves someone like the boss high and dry with a business to run and – literally – no roof over her damn head?”

“A’right, Lorraine. Simmer down,” Mellie advises through a tight grin.  
“You’re scarin’ Rey and the customers.” 

“They already know about it,” Lorraine counters.  
“We all took up collections at all the churches for ‘er. And there was that fish fry, too.” 

Rey smiles quietly to herself, noting that the salon staff and townsfolk seem devoted to keeping the doors open and the lights on no matter what. If she knew nothing else about Maz, that would be enough. Not only has she landed a job, but she's managed to find a community that, if she's accepted, will teach her everything she needs to know about the town. The phone at the front rings again loudly, and she scurries over to answer it.

“That’s the last call for today! We’re shutting it all down after this one,” Mellie announces from behind her. It is, after all, Friday night and everyone has been talking about their plans the entire day. One or two ask Rey what she’ll be up to. She doesn’t know what to tell them, but Mellie jumps in every time and tells them that she and Rey are planning a wedding.  
“Our nights are pretty booked for a while,” she exclaims with an air of amusement. 

Brushing away harried nerves, Rey composes herself before speaking into the receiver. 

“Miss Maz’s Sheer Designs,” she breathes, a little unsteady.  
“How may I direct your call?”

“Well, hello there, stranger. Seems like you got things pretty well handled.” 

It takes Rey a minute to place the deep baritone, and then a smile splits her face apart. It occurs to her that her heartbeat picks up a little bit now whenever she hears that voice. They can go slowly if Clyde really wants to, but it seems that Rey’s body has already made up its mind about several things. 

“Hello, yourself. You don’t have my cell number yet, do you?”

“No, I do not.” 

Her grin gets a bit wider, and she hears Mellie say something low and sarcastic to Maz who erupts into echoing laughter. Rey doesn't really hear their words, though. It's just not that important. Her heart flutters into her throat and she hears Clyde clear his; there’s a beat of quiet and it’s a warm kind of moment. She rather likes it. 

“You want ta’ come back down t’the Duck when you’re off? I have to work the bar tonight. It'll be a late one, but if you’re not too tired,”

“Yes,” she exclaims.  
“I…I’m fine. And…I would like that. I’d like to come have a drink. But…not too many drinks.”  
She can hear Clyde chuckle.

“Don’t worry, beautiful. I know a good bartender who won’t be shy about cutting you off so that his shoes can live to see another day.”

She laughs at that – as far as “how we met” stories, she’s heard far worse and much less interesting ones. Hopefully, the immigration officers will agree. 

“Maybe Mellie will join us,” she suggests. 

“Good! Yeah…um, yeah. That’s the idea. And…and Jimmy’s here. He wants to talk to you. With civility and kindness. Isn’t that right, Jimmy?”

Rey snorts as she hears a noise that resembles an angry bear come from somewhere beyond Clyde. After the previous evening, she’s in no hurry to revisit any conversations with the eldest Logan, but they’ll have to speak eventually. It’s inevitable – however, she wishes that it didn’t all have to happen now.  
“I have to help clean up the shop, but we’ll be there in a while,” she explains.  
“I…I’ll see you then.”  
She can feel the bartender smiling – can hear him nearly singing into the receiver. Everything feels so much more manageable, despite the grumpy Logan bear waiting for her at the local bar and grill.  
“Yes. Absolutely you shall. I wouldn't miss it.”  
“Good. Me neither, beautiful.”  
“Yes. Good.”

“Oh, for Christ sakes, you two!”  
Mellie’s irritated voice breaks Rey out of her reverie as the phone is snatched out of her hand. 

“Clyde, you can see her in a little bit. And don’t go putting any more hickeys on her neck before she comes into work on Monday! Her collar cain't hide something the size of Lake Superior. I’m your sister and I don’t want to think about things like that! You’re grossin’ me out!” 

Horrified, Rey’s hand flies up to her neck. She can hear Clyde on the other end of the line, telling his sister several things loudly and in quick succession. Before he finishes, Mellie's hung up the phone with no little bit of force, then turns towards her. 

“You still have some hair to sweep up, but I’ll get you back to Clyde soon. And Rey?”  
“Yes?”  
Mellie smirks like a fox that had been rummaging through a well-kept hen house.  
Rey is suddenly less embarrassed than amused as she feels herself start to giggle. 

“Glad y’all figured things out.”


	8. Howlin' For You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heeding the warning shot, Jimmy looks off to the side of the room with a sigh.
> 
> “Alright. Fine. We’re goddamn man whores. Whatever. Just…maybe don’t get led around by your dick by this one, ok?” 
> 
> “I am reformed,” Clyde declares with a nod as he crosses his arms and fixes Jimmy with a thousand-yard stare. 
> 
> **********************
> 
> Author's Note:  
> Ok, kids. We have to have a talk. My Clyde definitely runs a little dark and isn't virginal. Sweet and confused and puppy-esque? Sure. A gentleman? Absolutely. But inexperienced? Nope. Just out of practice.  
> This chapter does a lot of work, but it's necessary in order to balance the plot.  
> Also, it gives me the chance to round out Clyde a bit. Turns out he's a fascinating man who likes the kind of music you'd hear in a early nineties bowling alley full of smoke *and* an act like The Black Keys. 
> 
> And just remember - real estate is a good investment. *wink*
> 
> Thanks for reading! Here's the chapter eight sing-a-long link:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrmy_Yjc4Ik
> 
> **************************

“You sure she don’t know nothin’ ‘bout…you know, Cauliflower?”

Clyde is working at his desk in the bar’s office, balancing the books and putting in orders for food and paper products when Jimmy comes in that afternoon. He sighs, knowing full well that he likely won’t be very productive for the next little bit due to his brother’s nerves and insistence. 

He’s got to start watching the front at around five, so the books will just have to wait until Saturday.  
It’s all chaos. 

This whole marriage situation is causing him nothing but upheaval and disorganization.  
That’s a terrifying thing for Clyde because, at heart, he is a sensible kind of man.  
Best to be, what with The Curse following him around. 

The heist that had occurred three years before had been an outlier in an otherwise sensible life.  
Ok, well, there was that one time when he’d gotten thrown into juvie…but…that was a mistake, and any sensible person could have made it.

The military had provided more structure to Clyde’s already restrained life philosophies; do what you’re supposed to when you’re supposed to and don’t draw too much attention to yourself.  
That’s what had gotten him through high school. After a detour which led him through Iraq, he’d taken a job at The Duck Tape and had figured that this was where his life would begin again and end. 

However, fate and Jimmy Logan’d had other plans. 

After doing some time upstate and robbing the Charlotte Motor Speedway during a particularly hectic Memorial Day weekend, Clyde had returned to the bar.

Then, there’d been Sarah. 

She’d come in one night with her long legs, long brown hair and slinky black dress. She’d told him she was new in town and had made eyes at ‘im; he’d made eyes back. Clyde knows now that he had just been high on the success of the heist. The money he was now sittin’ on had made him feel a little too invincible. 

He hadn’t cared much about the details of their fling, except for the fact that they’d both been able to itch several scratches they’d mutually felt.  
At least the sex had been good. 

All of it got shut down one night when Clyde had overheard a conversation Sarah was having on her phone. 

She’d been FBI and since she didn’t have anything on ‘im, he unceremoniously kicked her out of his place. Mellie and Jimmy had done the rest and agent Sarah Grayson – whose cover was thoroughly blown within a few hours of Clyde’s discovery – left the Logan siblings and her pride behind in Danville.  
After her superiors got wind of how she’d disobeyed orders and had kept tracking down the perpetrators of the so-called Hillbilly Heist, she’d been called back to Washington to have her ass kicked up between her ears – or at least, that’s what Clyde hope had happened. 

The incident with Sarah had caused Clyde to be a little wary of his assets as well as the abilities of others to take them away. To ease his mind, he bought the bar outright from his former boss, then went on running the place himself.

Maybe folks had questions at first about how he’d had the cash to acquire The Duck.  
Said those Logan kids didn’t have it in ‘em to run anything ‘cept maybe their mouths.  
However, the former proprietor was too content in a Boca Raton condo he’d “mysteriously” inherited to care about trivial details like his tree of a one-armed bartender taking over the joint. 

That put the issue to bed for good. 

After a few night classes in accounting and marketing at the local community college, Clyde got his associates in business, finding that he was indeed a capable kind of person. 

“Real estate,” he’d told Jimmy with an air of serious consideration, “is a good investment.” 

With the building paid off, and an established clientele, he figures he can retire with a nice little nest egg when the time comes. Nobody will think twice about a business man being comfortable in his old age. Maybe he can even pass his bar down to someone – kids, if he ever has ‘em. He could finally have a legacy that the Logan family is proud of.

At any rate, chaos isn’t ideal when there’s the Duck to run.  
Normally, Clyde would have been a slight bit more irritated than usual with all this upset.  
Instead, he’s happier than he’s been in months.  
Possibly years.  
Rey Kenobi had everything to do with that, and he isn’t stupid enough to be ungrateful. 

After Clyde’d finally gotten Poe and Jessika off his place the night before, Jimmy had stuck around for a heart-to-heart…which meant that they’d stood three feet apart on Clyde’s front porch while drinking beer and occasionally grunting at one other.  
During all that grunting, Clyde had been sick with worry for Rey – he suspected that the whole evening had been too much for her frazzled nerves. 

He hadn’t been thinking clear about how her life had been all up-ended.  
She needs time – that’s God’s honest truth.  
Clyde will give her that and more if she wants it.  
The real question is whether or not she wants him, and the fear that she sees him as a means to an end or worse, a rebound, leaves him with a sinking feeling in his stomach. 

He wants to trust her as much as he suspects she wants to trust him.  
To the best of his knowledge, she’s been upfront about everything so far.  
But there’s The Curse, and it’s always crouched at his back like an angry cat – ready to pounce. Sometimes it sleeps for years and years, but it’s always there, just waiting. 

Sarah had been cagey in the best moments, and he’d always kind of suspected that somethin’ was up; girls didn’t naturally flock to him, after all. He’d gone all surely and quiet after that (or surlier and quieter, depending on who you asked) and that had put an end to having lady friends. 

Right now, Rey doesn’t seem emotionally capable of foolin’ anyone.  
She seems barely capable of trusting herself.  
But in a blinding twist of irony, she has decided to try and trust him.

There’s no substitute for time. 

Clyde knows it – knows that his girl needs to heal. He checks himself with the realization that she really is his girl, now. Not in a possessive, creepy way; just in an ‘we’ve got each other’s backs’ kind of way, and a ‘I really like kissing you on the kitchen counter’ kind of way. They’ve at least settled on that.

“She don’t know nothin’, Jimmy.”

“You said that about t’other one!”

“Rey isn’t…she’s nothing like Sarah.”

Jimmy considers his brother from where he’s standing, and eyes Clyde skeptically.  
“How. Do. You. Know. That?” 

“Well, for one thing, Rey didn’t jump my bones as soon as she got the chance.” 

“Mellie says she’s got quite the love bite on her neck that says otherwise.” 

“Goddammit…” 

Clyde smacks both of his hands flat onto the surface of the desk, and looks down in exasperation. The flat of his palm sounds far different than the 'clank' of his prosthetic hitting hard wood; he winces from the differentiating echo. Clyde is trying desperately to keep his cool, but there’s only so much a man can take.

“D’you want me to just avoid women for the rest of my life, Jimmy? Do you want me lonely?”  
The eldest Logan pauses for a moment.  
“No, Clyde. That’s not what I want. I just want you to carefully consider the situation you find yerself in.”

“I am. I am being very careful. And what I know is that…Rey is…she needed help, and I can help her.”

“Is that right? So, you’re just a good Samaritan?”

Jimmy walks around to the chair on the other side of Clyde’s desk and takes a seat.  
“I guess if she’d been a sixty-year-old lady in need of ‘help’ you would’ve done the same thing?”

“Shut up.” 

“All I’m sayin’ is don’t get fooled by, ah, your little brain.” 

“You know, I do have self-control.”

“I seem to remember a time when you did not.” 

Clyde takes a moment to consider this; despite the crudity of his words, Jimmy isn’t wrong.  
Coming back from the war with one arm missing had made him want to prove that he was still a whole person – still a man – in lots of ways.  
The women of Danville hadn’t minded obliging, although nobody ever wanted to commit. It had been a bad time, but he’d come through it.  
It wasn’t fair for Jimmy to throw it in his face. 

“Might I remind you of a very long list of ladies who have served as notches on your bedpost?” 

The room gets tense; there is a graveley slow tone in Clyde’s voice that he only uses with Jimmy when he’s decidedly sick of his shit. Former encounters with said tone have led to both of them having physical altercations.

It used to be that Jimmy, big tough football player that he was, would whoop Clyde good. 

The army had given Clyde an edge, though. Despite his missing arm, he was a large man who’d kept up his physique by way of loading and unloading shipments for the bar. He even went down to the local community center to lift and go for runs once in a while. 

In the past few years, Clyde had been asked by various townsfolk what he was doing that made him so much larger than the other Logans. He didn’t rightly know how to answer, ‘cept he felt too tall and awkward to really appreciate his stature. 

Heeding the warning shot, Jimmy looks off to the side of the room with a sigh.  
“Alright. Fine. We’re goddamn man whores. Whatever. Just…maybe don’t get led around by your dick by this one, ok?” 

“I am reformed,” Clyde declares with a nod as he crosses his arms and fixes Jimmy with a thousand-yard stare. 

*******

Rey does not arrive at the bar till seven o’clock, and Clyde worries himself into feeling like a mother hen. He tries to keep his mind occupied by paying extra attention to his regulars, and playing lots of his favorite songs on the jukebox. The seventh Black Keys song in a row starts up, and Clyde cracks his own neck to relieve some tension. 

Jimmy occupies himself at the pool tables with other bar-goers, and after a few winning rounds, he’s in a friendly mood. Clyde decides to keep this sea change fueled with good beer that he keeps coming – on the house. 

When the women he’s waiting for finally breeze through the door, he’s relieved…and then alarmed. Sure enough, Clyde sees his sister, and she’s with someone who might be Rey.  
He can’t be certain at first.  
She’s still wearing the same clothes from earlier that day; however, everything above the neck is…different. 

Low and strong, the base line from the song on his jukebox synchs up in time with his girl’s footfalls, and it all works together into something impossibly perfect.

“I must admit I can't explain/Any of these thoughts racin' through my brain, it's true/Baby I'm howlin' for you…”

The woman he sees has hair that’s been cut into fashionable layers.  
Her face is done up all fancy with perfectly manicured brows.  
Her lips are brick red and shaded just so. There are shadows and patches of light on her face where there was none before, and her face resembles a painting.  
Did she always have huge black honkin’ eyelashes?  
Is it normal to want to kiss eyelashes?  
Clyde doesn’t know, nor does he care. 

“Mockingbird, can't you see/Little girl's got a hold on me, like glue/Baby I'm howlin' for you…”

Were her eyes always that large and gold and green?  
He thinks – knows - that he can find his heart at the bottom of eyes like this, and the thought scares him in the best of ways. 

Rey’s lovely…but it’s nearly more than he can handle.  
There’s an uncomfortable hardness forming in his jeans and he shifts a bit, combating the memories of being up against her that morning in the kitchen.  
Repeating the same mantra over and over again in his brain.

Slow…time…slow…time…  
But then the rhythm just reminds him of other things he’d rather be doing with Rey, and he has to focus on something else. 

He shakes his head at his rapscallion of a sister who has caused this enjoyable – albeit awkward – moment. 

Clyde cannot think of anything to say, so he waves lamely at Rey with his right hand and prays he does not look as ravenous as he feels.  
She smiles, waving back sweetly as if she doesn’t know what effect she’s having on him. 

“Good Lord, you two are gonna rot my teeth out from my head,” Mellie drawls sarcastically with a smile and a pronounced eye-roll. 

“You’re too pretty now,” Clyde finally manages as Rey slides onto one of the barstools.  
“You’re makin’ me hurt…but it’s a nice kind of pain.”

He gives her a shy smile and Rey shrugs, winking at him in happy nonchalance with those big lashes.

“I might’ve done a little magic before we came over,” Mellie said, leaning over Rey’s shoulder.  
“Give us a couple beers, big brother! Rey’n me had a long, hard day.”

“That’s not entirely true. I only answered phones. And fixed a dryer.”

“Fixed a dryer?”  
Both Mellie and Rey turn their heads towards one of the tables where Jimmy is racking up for a game.

“You a mechanic or somethin’?”  
He asks the question in a short, punctuated burst. Clyde’s heartbeat ticks up a notch, and he clears his throat as a kind of warning. 

“Kind of,” Rey answers cheerfully, as if she’s oblivious to the intent of Jimmy’s question. 

“I try to fix things, and sometimes I get lucky. All I had to do was bypass a capacitator to the heating elements so that it wouldn’t burn the place down. It wasn’t a big deal.”  
Jimmy cocks one of his eyebrows towards the sky. 

“You….bypassed the capacitator?”

“Um, yes.”  
He nods thoughtfully.

“That’s a neat trick. How did you…?”

“Ah! Trade secret I’m afraid,” Rey answered with a shake of her finger and a knowing grin.  
Jimmy’s face takes on an amused expression, and when he finally speaks, it's with a chuckle.

“Well ok, lucky girl. I’ve got a problem with m’truck’s carburetor. Maybe you and me can have a look at it before I head back to Lynchburg on Sunday.”

“I’d like that,” Rey responds gently and Just like that, the mood in the Duck lightens considerably. Clyde’s heart rate is finally normal again, and now he has the freedom to look at his girl’s pretty face without too much worry. 

With a sigh of relief, he sets two frosty mugs down in front of Mellie and Rey. To the casual observer, he just sounds overtired, but Mellie glances up at him and smiles reassuringly.  
For the first time in two days, it feels like things are going to be alright.  


He also knows that when Jimmy asks people to help him with his much-loved and often-patched truck, it means he feels friendly enough with ‘em to give ‘em a chance.  
It’s his way of opening up to Rey…just a little. 

“Just a little” is ok, though he’ll be keeping an eye on his brother for obvious reasons.  
It wouldn’t be the first time Jimmy had charmed a woman away from ‘im and those memories still smart something fierce. 

Jimmy gives his sister-in-law to be a tight smile, then walks up to the opposite end of the bar from where the two women sit. Curious, Clyde lets himself drift over to Jimmy’s side, and leans over with an expectant look on his face. 

“I’ll say one thing for ‘er,” Jimmy mumbles, “she’s not an idiot.”

Clyde nods, and lets his chin rest on the meat of his right hand, elbow braced on the bar top.  
The whole world is spinning like a top, but it has nothing to do with the liquor he sells. 

“Throw the ball, to the stick/swing and miss and catcher's mitt, strike two/Baby I'm howlin' for you…”


	9. Chain Lightning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She sniffs, absentmindedly wiping the back of her hand across her nose.  
> “And…I know that we’re getting married for – for odd reasons, but you’re still marrying me, so…”  
> Words weren’t working to her advantage anymore, so Rey stands up and drops her robe to the floor.  
> Clyde’s eyes go wide, and he seems to waver like a tree being felled by an army of lumberjacks. His pupils are black and full of shock; she knows exactly what he sees. 
> 
> *******
> 
> Author’s Note: So, herein is really explicit smut. Seriously, kids – I gave myself the vapors.  
> This chapter is long, but chocked full of good context. Hopefully, this doesn’t feel too artificial or rushed.  
> Let me know what you think. It’s my first time (ha!) writing a scene like this. Sorry for any weird logistical errors. 
> 
> *******

Days pass by so quickly that Rey does not notice the air is growing colder around the mountains; one morning the fog starts to roll off the hills and sweep into the indentation of valley where Danville rests. 

It’s soft cotton wrapped around the hardened edges of streets and buildings. It crawls onto her skin, sending tremors down Rey’s sides. 

She finally has to move the jungle of plants that have been living on Clyde’s back steps into her room and onto the kitchen table because the nights have become frosty.  
When he comes home to an indoor garden one night, his tall bulking form stops dead still in the doorway. Clyde can only look blankly at the splotches of green in numerous pots that had not been there the day before. Rey emerges shyly from behind them where she’s been snipping off wilting leaves. Biting her lip, she squints up at him while folding her hands into the pocket of an oversized hoodie she’s wearing. 

“I’m sorry for being such a wanker and not asking first – I can get some of the girls at the shop to watch them over the winter. I’ll get them out of here, I promise.”  
The bartender grunts in response, and looks unphased but bewildered before he nods.

“I’ll get you some shelves so that we c’n use the table. We’ll keep ‘em here. I just don’t want to mistake your Ficus for a salad.”

He says the last bit without altering his expression, so it takes Rey a moment to realize he’s made a joke, then she breaks into a grin as he makes his way to the fridge for a beer.  
And so there are suddenly growing creepers, plump Jade plants with thick stemmy bases, sprouting Christmas cacti, and terrariums filled with dusky blankets of moss all around the place. 

Sometimes, when he’s moving through the house, Clyde gently brushes his right hand against the tops of leaves. This feels lucky to him, too. 

*******

Rey fills her hours with fixing electronics, among other things. 

She’s become a known figure around town; this is evidenced by folks bringing her their malfunctioning toaster ovens, fuzzy televisions, misbehaving smartphones, and cranky electric toothbrushes. 

There is a gift in what she does. 

After Jimmy’s carburetor functions stably for two whole weeks, rumors that she is a miracle worker begin to circulate. After that, scads of people show up at Maz’ salon with whatever is broken in tow. 

As for her new wedding, there are the appropriate documents to gather and a marriage license to apply for. 

She and Clyde will be able to get a license within a day – most likely during their first trip to see the registrar. West Virginia seems willing to expedite the process unlike other places. The powers that be don’t even require a blood tests or waiting periods. Rey cannot decide if this is advantageous or reckless. Nevertheless, when her immigration paperwork is in order, they can go ahead any time they like. 

The rapidity of this also seems to rattle Clyde. 

Rey observes that he’s settled into being quietly stoic while also being more careful with her. He’s always been pleasant and courteous, but now there is a sincere gentle observation of her space. He is a diplomat coming to a distant country from far away. He is respectful of her rhythms, moods, and idiosyncrasies.

She fills his cupboards with Irish oatmeal for porridge, and beans for toast.  
He responds by trying both and not being squeamish about either one. 

When she uses phrases or words from where she’s from, he asks about each one in an unironic way.  
He is learning her as much as she’s learning him and her new way of being.  
It takes a moment for Rey to realize that what had begun as a farce was only half-heartedly pretense at this point. 

There is only a time and date to set.  
When Mellie begins lining up possible days on the calendar and ideas for small receptions and the like, Rey becomes a generator full of nervous energy; she can feel it touching everything in her path.

“People are starting to think the two of you are just gonna live in sin forever, Rey Kenobi! We can’t have y’all makin’ tongues wag. Best to get this done, babe,” her sister-in-law to be announces one day in the salon. 

Rey agrees, but she admits to herself that she’s a bit frightened. Not of Clyde, but of the situation itself. After she’s married, Rey knows that she’ll have to start the process of applying for her citizenship, and who knows how that will go. 

Her insides rattle with apprehension at the thought.  
And yet, not even her broken, sputtering nerves seem to bother the gentle bear of a man. He has a natural tendency towards attentiveness; it’s a good trait in bar owners as well as a prospective partners. 

Mellie tells Rey that this is because when their mother fell ill, he stayed with her the most.  
Jimmy’d been employed by a construction company at the time, and the youngest Logan was trying to save for beauty school by working at the local Grocery Castle. 

“It wasn’t long after Mama died that he enlisted,” Mellie says with a matter-of-fact wave of her hand. 

“He didn’t really talk about it; just graduated from high school and then left for basic.” 

On nights that Clyde works, she comes to the bar for a couple of hours and splays her tools all over one of the tables. Curious patrons often ask her what she’s doing, and she happily obliges with explanations that people pretended to understand. 

“I like hearing you talk,” Clyde comments one evening, sliding a thick white coffee mug of Earl Grey with a slice of lemon into her line of sight and motioning towards a dissected flashlight. 

“I feel smarter just bein’ near you.” 

Rey takes to wearing handsfree magnifying glasses over her head when she works at the bar. She pokes and prods with a small set of tools, loving tiny circuit boards to health with her reamer and needle.  
Clyde always nags her about her eyesight going due to the low lighting in the Duck; this manifests into a magnifying glass with an inset LED light waiting for her on the driver’s side seat of her little blue bug one morning.  
She doesn’t have to ask who it’s from. Rey runs into the house, startling Clyde with a massive hug and a particularly long, frantic kiss.  
No one asks why she’s late that day, but Mellie winks at her all the same. 

*******

Rey begs off of work early on a Wednesday, telling Maz that she’s not feeling well.  
It’s hard to lie to someone who’s shown her such kindness, but today it is also necessary.  
On her drive home, Rey feels equal parts nervous and excited. Her hands twitch on the steering wheel, but she sings along absentmindedly to whatever’s on her shuffle despite the feeling of stones built up in her stomach. There is release in the familiarity of song repetition, and it lulls her into feeling safe. 

When Rey gets to the house, she takes a seat on Clyde’s front porch. The early autumn sunlight warms her face, and she thinks that if she can just soak up enough of it, she could generate some courage that she doesn’t quite yet have. Blinking into the bright blue above her head, she smells car diesel and cold wind on the air. It does nothing but remind her of how late it’s getting.

He’ll likely be home by seven thirty. 

Unable to muster resolve, Rey heads indoors and makes a beeline for the whiskey she knows Clyde keeps in the cupboard above the fridge. With a sigh, she twists off the corked top and takes a swig of Mitchter’s.

“Right. Rey Kenobi, you can do this. You must do this,” she says out loud to herself. With a resolute nod, she moves her way into the bathroom, and draws herself a scalding-hot bath. After stripping down, she eases herself into the water and looks at the top of her knees and at the middle of her chest where the marks begin.

She sighs and wrinkles her brow, thinking of a storm from another life. Her skin still burns sometimes, and her spine reacts and recoils as the thought. Just like that, she’s back there – body on fire as energy greater than anything she’s ever experienced turns her inside out. 

Rey shakes herself from the momentary stupor, forcing her mind to move past the memory; she shaves her legs and scrubs herself down with the bar of Ivory kept in a soap dish on one corner of the tub, Then, there’s an expensive shampoo and conditioner duo that Maz wants her to try. It’s purple, and it smells like the fairytale forest from a Disney film. Dutifully, she rubs it through her hair, trying to relax. 

When her fingers and toes start pruning up, she emerges from the tub and dries off. Rey uses her blow-dryer, and luxuriates in the warm air while brushing her brown strands out till they shine. Finally, she wraps herself in a long dark green housecoat purchased years ago during the dead of a particularly nasty winter. 

The woman moves back into the kitchen and pours herself a little more whiskey in an attempt to keep her anxiety at bay. She drinks it neat without ice, and sips it slow while watching the clock in the living room. The slow rotation of its minute and hour hands nearly drive her mad. 

At six forty-seven, she heads back into the bathroom to brush her teeth, and put her hair into some kind of order. Rey opts for another low, loose bun and when she’s finished, she leers suspiciously at her reflection in the mirror.

“Fucking hell, don’t be a twit, Kenobi,” she reminds herself gruffly, and then nervously sits down on the ugly couch to wait for the sound of Clyde’s truck. 

She’s wrong about him being there by seven-thirty. He’s home at seven twenty-three, and as he pulls into the yard, she gulps down her fright. Rey’s heart sounds like a timpani in her ears, and she can feel the sweat forming on her palms, the undersides of her knees, the back of her neck. 

Scraping of shoes on gravel, stomping of large shoes on wooden steps, and the sound of the door unlatching nearly give her fits. And then, there’s her absolute dish of a guy, all lanky limbs and dark hair. He’s lovely, and still unaware of the fact.  
As soon as he sees her, he smiles and holds up a small brown bag. 

“Hey, sweetheart! I had Brad make you up some chicken fingers and, um, chips.” 

“Oh, thank you,” she breathes.

Clyde reads the room, and carefully lays the food down onto a side table.

“Rey? What’s wrong?”  
There’s silence as she swallows hard and exhales. 

“Clyde…I need to talk to you.”  
His face goes somber.

“What about?”  
With a deep breath, Rey grabs the edge of the couch cushions and looks straight ahead at one place on the wall. She focuses, then finally manages to retrieve words from her throat. 

“Look…you need to know something. I’m…well, when I was fifteen I was…in an accident. I didn’t have a home then. Not really. Just foster homes that I bounced around in. I ran away from most of them.”

“Rey, sweetheart,”  
She raises her hand, stopping him so that she can finish. 

“One day, I was on the outskirts of the city with the blokes I’d been running with, and there was a storm…”  
She gulps, and tries to remember how to breath normally. She can feel Clyde’s confusion, and it’s searing. 

“You probably noticed – I don’t wear anything that doesn’t have long sleeves…nothing strappy or, or tee-shirts. Not even my pajamas, right?”

“I thought you were just cold,” Clyde responds, softly shifting his feet.  
Her face falls into a half-smile, but she’s still fixing her eyes on the wall. When she speaks again, her voice is shaking. 

“There was lightening…and somehow, I…I got struck.”  
Shocked silence fills the space between them.

“I mean, what are the odds. But, I lived. Most victims do…although that’s really what got me into physics. That, and the doctor who treated me at the hospital. He…he took me in. Best person I’ve ever met. He passed when I was twenty-one.”  
She sniffs, absentmindedly wiping the back of her hand across her nose. 

“And…I know that we’re getting married for – for odd reasons, but you’re still marrying me, so…”  
Words weren’t working to her advantage anymore; Rey stands up and drops her robe to the floor.

Clyde’s eyes go wide, and he seems to waver like a tree being felled by an army of lumberjacks. His pupils are black and full of shock; she knows exactly what he sees.  
She’s naked, yes.  
But there are also the red and pink fractal striations that paint her torso, part of her left bicep, and the tops of her thighs. She releases a sound, and she’s sure it’s a distillation of the fear in her bones. 

“- You deserve to know what you’re getting. If we’re in this – and I think we are – you deserve…well, others couldn’t get past this. And…and I don’t blame you if…” 

“What…?” 

Clyde’s voice breaks and he lets the single word stand in for a more fully articulated question. Rey can’t help but let the tears building up go onto her face.  
Oh God, he’s terrified.  
What has she done?

“They’re called Lichtenberg Figures? Um, right. So…I…the lightening strike…left…these…”  
And then she can’t breathe or talk. There’s nothing left but incoherent babble through nervous tears.  
She wants so badly to stop herself, but then - then Clyde’s face melts into something she can’t name. 

Moving towards where she’s standing, he sinks to his knees in front of her. His brown eyes are dark and they sparkle in patches of bare lamplight playing over both their faces.  
Clyde’s so tall that even folded, his head comes to her chest.  
But, Gods, to have a man like this on his knees…

He looks up into her face and unbuckles his prosthetic arm with practiced ease, tossing it to one side of the couch.  
It’s a clear message; she doesn’t need a clear pronouncement.  
Then he’s holding her tight. She sinks herself into his solid heft as he kisses her shoulder, nuzzling his nose into her skin.

“Shhhh…Jesus, Rey – you lived. You’re beautiful, and you lived to be…a damned beautiful map…”

She wraps her arms around his neck, drying her face in his dark hair. He smells of smoke and a little like the wooden walls of his bar.  
Rey can also detect the same lonesome cold air from the mountains she tries so hard to ward off with coffee and sweaters in the early morning hours. 

“Clyde, I don’t know if you can, I mean, this…”

But she never finishes the sentence – doesn’t need to – because he’s decided to lend her his tongue so that he can tell her that there’s nothing else to say.  
He grabs at the back of her head, and fixes his fingers into her hair, pulling it out of formation.  
Finally, he runs the fingers of his right hand across the risen skin of her scars. 

It’s the sensation of being read, traced, and traveled. He follows them down her sternum, underneath her breasts, and down her hips.  
She’s smiling – grinning like mad. He is clear – his intention is clear - like blue autumn sky. 

What there is of his left appendage is softly wrapped around Rey’s lower back and lends her stability.  
She whimpers into his mouth, arching herself against him, then bites into his lower lip with unspoken urgency. 

“Rey, Rey, Rey. You lived, you damned miracle. That’s all that matters to me. You lived…”  
She makes a noise and presses her knee to his groin, hoping that it’s enough of an invitation.

He makes that gruff noise in the back of his throat she knows by heart now.  
He’s looking her square in the face, amused and calmer than she’d like him to be. 

“Now, have some patience,” he teases darkly, lowering his head to look at her as he brushes his fingers against the marks running like the lines of rivers down the expanse of her thighs. 

“Jus’…let me hold onto you, li’l scavenger. Let me savor…this.”  
He splays an immense hand over her sternum, his face soft with wonder.

“I know you wanted to go slow,” she stammers, “so, we don’t have to…”

“Do you want to?” Clyde asks, peering up at her below raised brows.

“That’s what matters, Rey. I do. I’ve wanted to for a long time, but I don’t want t’hurt you…scare you. I need t’know what you want, baby.”  
She nods frantically. 

“Clyde – Christ, yes Clyde, I want this.”

He nods resolutely, and lowers his mouth to her breast, clamping his lips around her areola.  
His tongue toys with her nipple; the sensation has her running fingers through his thick dark hair and making breathy little sounds into his scalp.

“If you want to stop – tell me. If anything hurts or scares you, tell me,” he says steadily, unlatching long enough to look up at her once again.  
She nods with an unsteady smile, and his face goes to a hungry, reverent place. 

“Now…where was I?”

She hear heart nearly gives out as his fingers travel further towards her inner thighs and towards her core.  
They’re long, thick magnificent things – Rey knows because she’s watched them with interest many times.  
He growls as he runs the tip of his index finger over her folds, and she feels the reverberations of the sound in his chest. 

“Goddamn, you’re soaking. What should we do ‘bout that?”  
Before she can think of how to answer, he’s gently prodding her clit with the pad of his thumb while his index finger gently dips into her.  
She gasps - her stomach going liquid as her cunt contracts and pulses in time with her heart. 

“Whatever you want to, Mr. Logan. I’m open to ideas,” she breathes.  
He laughs, and in the next instant, she’s hoisted up and then deposited onto the couch in a sitting position.  
Clyde stands over her a moment, taking her lips again before going back onto his knees.

“Put your legs on my shoulders, Rey.”  
She tentatively obeys, and watches as Clyde lowers his face to her center.  
She feels uneasy as he takes a moment to regard the sight before him.  
Then, he hums with approval and gently, slowly kisses her outer lips. 

“I swore to myself I’d ruin you, and here you are...”

She jolts as he slowly licks the length of her from bottom to top, sucking around the bud of nerves that makes her most frantic. 

He repeats the motion until Rey’s gasping, clutching his hair, and making ungodly noises.  
He dips his tongue deep inside of her and her legs go wobbly as she braces herself against the cushions. 

“You taste amazing,” he mutters into her before moving his tongue across her again.  
“So good and sweet...” 

He slides half of his index back into her, and a dark chuckle leaves his throat as he uses his teeth to gently nip at her clit.  
She sees blinding white, then propels herself forward until his finger is flush with her and she’s rocking hard against his hand.

“That’s it, sweetheart. Just let go. Let go for me,” he mutters before swirling his tongue around her again. Tentatively, he applies a second finger to her entrance, and lets her body adjust to the intrusion.  
Slowly, he moves up further into her walls and brings his fingers forward in search of the place that he must know will make her scream.

“Christ,” she howls as he keeps applying pressure to the inside of her while mercilessly lashing her clit with tongue, teeth, lips - over and over.  
Something breaks inside her and she clenches down hard, suddenly and blissfully gone.  
When her vision returns, she slowly begins to remove her ankles from the broad bow of Clyde’s shoulders as he kisses her knees, running another finger over one large striation of scarring on her stomach. 

“Beautiful little scavenger – it’s just you and me now,” he intones. 

“We’re not nearly done yet.”


	10. Shelter from the Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "During his childhood, Clyde had gone to church on Sunday mornings every now and again with Mama.  
> It had been important to her – especially near the end. He’d heard once or twice about doubting Thomas; as he remembered it, Thomas was the fellow that didn’t believe Jesus could come back from the dead.  
> His sin was doubting the miracle of the resurrection, or some fool thing. 
> 
> Clyde had admitted to himself more than once that Thomas was the only biblical figure he’d ever related to – even a little bit. And it seems most relevant now; he’s skeptical at best about most things but wants to believe what he’s hearing from his girl. 
> 
> Rey wants him to believe, and that’s all he needs to know."
> 
> *******

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, a long absence...but I hope that this chapter will begin to cover a multitude of my sins.  
> Also, Bob Dylan is the musical inspiration for this installment:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8whzxttOIk
> 
> Although given the content, maybe a better choice would have been "Lay, Lady, Lay." ;-)  
> Y'ALL! If you're not into reading chapters devoted purely to sex, you'll want to skip this chapter. 
> 
> As always, thank you for reading. You're my favorite humans, and I love you.
> 
> xoxox 
> 
> *******

He knows that he needs her wet as an ocean; he’s not a small man.

This is what Clyde thinks as he’s carrying Rey bridal style, much as he had the night they met, into his bedroom – which she has never been in, though they’ve been living in the same house for a few weeks. She’s still unclothed, and although his body and blood is pounding with excited wonder, his hunger is not solely credited to the fact that she’s naked as the day she was born. 

No, he’s seen lots of gals naked. But this is Rey, and Rey is – he’s sure, now – magic. She’s been writ on by nature itself, and he’s thinking of all the magnificent patterns that he can see on her. Perhaps if he were a smarter, wiser man with more learnin’ he thinks that he might be able to read what the patterns say. 

What Clyde knows is that she is the puzzle piece that finally fits.  
They’re both marked, after all. 

He can suddenly see The Curse exactly as it is; there’s darkness in his family’s bad juju that goes way back and it’s taken and taken and taken from them all. But his girl, she’s been touched, too. She’s proof that sometimes, there’s too much energy and light. Power like that – well, it can burn a body up somethin’ fierce. 

Nothing about any of this has been coincidence – he’s known that from the beginning. But she, in all her smallness and stubbornness, has managed to survive something that took out one of his heartiest ancestors quick as you please. Clyde’s great uncle had succumbed to death during an electric storm, and ever since then, the Logans had been a lightening rod for the most rotten kinds of luck. 

Ah, but that’s fine by Clyde.

Rey, with her weird food, hoard of plants, bevvy of busted doo-dads, and silly little VW is now a part of him.  
He’s damn well going to make sure that any brutal strokes of electric fire never touch her again – he’ll take it all if he can just make sure his girl is safe and warm in his arms. 

Rey is laughing, folded as she is against his chest, and they amble into the master bedroom.  
He deposits her on an old quilt, and stands for a moment taking her in. Her skin is a beautiful sandy color – freckled and still dewy from sweat. She’s all sinewy muscle with soft bits here and there, breathless and staring up at him with raw eagerness; he’s only seen the softness of her face in dreams.  
This reality, even in half darkness, causes a rushed feverish feeling.  
He’s lost – absolutely gone. 

It takes Rey cocking an eyebrow in puzzlement before he can think straight again.

“You seem like you might get lonely, bein’ the only one without clothes,” he finally suggests, looking down at himself sheepishly.

“Hmm, yes, I think you’re right,” Rey responds as she raises herself off the bed to stand in front of him. While she’s undoing the buckle of his belt, Clyde notices with some pride that Rey seems to be having a hard time standing up. Her wobbles announce what he already knows; he’d pleased her. He’s given her body what it needs and it’s enough to make him brave. 

He’s leaning in for another kiss, but she ducks to her knees onto the carpet, looking up briefly. Good God, she’s angelic in the dusky half-light filtering in from the living room. All big eyes and sweet little heart-shaped face with lips made for sinning. He can’t help but smile as she loosens his zipper, and shucks his jeans over his knees and feet, revealing plaid boxers that, at the moment, resemble a two-person tent. 

He kicks off his shoes, and kicks the denim away, briefly wondering about how he should inconspicuously get rid of his socks. 

“Details,” he reminds himself once again. Usually, details bothered him but he could give less of a damn if he was naked with his socks on right now. After all, Rey didn’t seem to mind a bit. 

“Having a good time, are we?”  
She smirks, and reaches to pull down the fabric separating them. His boxers finally join his jeans on the floor, and he can’t help but let out a little gasp at feeling completely bare. 

“Tell me if this isn’t ok, right?” 

“Baby,” he hears himself breathe, and he tries to respond, but suddenly she’s gazing at his jutting cock and he can’t do anything but watch what’s going on below his waist in wonder. 

“Well, you are…a challenge,” she exclaims, eyeing the large appendage with awe, “and I think I’m going to have to suck on that big dick of yours– just to see if I’m up to it.” 

Clyde’s knees nearly give out and then she‘s tentatively running her fingers on the underside of his shaft. Rey takes a moment to fondle his balls gently, and he tries not to keen in earnest. However, when she moves to the head of his dick and spreads the precum dripping from the tip, Clyde moans with something between pleasure and pain. Rey responds by making a sound of appreciation in the back of her throat. He hears it, and then he can feel it as she replaces her fingers with her lips. 

Rey moves upwards, placing a light fist at the base of him, then teases the slit on his throbbing head with that devilish tongue of hers, and slowly – slowly, she begins the process of fitting him into her throat. There’s a pressure that’s building low in his scrotum, and then Rey’s holding his balls again as she slides her mouth up and down along with her spit-covered hand, sucking and making lewd wet noises low in her chest. 

She’s wedged against his upper thigh and she uses his stance for stability, doing her best to gently increase and decrease pressure on his cock at a maddening, unpredictable pace. 

Her neat bun has long since come undone, and his hands are pulling at her hair a little in time with her rhythm.  
When Clyde starts seeing a kaleidoscope of colors exploding in the darkness around them, he gently places his right hand on her shoulder.

“Enough, baby – enough.”  
Rey gives one more long slurping suck, then he hears the telltale “pop” as she removes him from her throat. 

“You can come, Clyde. It’s ok. I want you to feel good, too.”  
Clyde groans with amusement, then hoists her up till they’re standing face-to-face. 

“You’re too good at that,” he teases, giving her face an affectionate caress with his trembling hand.  
“…and I want t’ finish inside your sweet little pussy.” 

He reaches down to feel between her legs and there’s warm hot slick to greet his fingers. She gasps, and he can feel another shudder run through her. He takes pity on his girl and lays Rey down on the quilt before lifting his shirt over his head and finally – thankfully – ridding himself of his socks. 

He can feel Rey’s eyes go dinnerplate large, not to mention the smolder in the air between them; he knows that he’s a strong guy but it must show on the outside, too. 

Clyde gives her a moment while she takes him in – her eyes are focused on his broad chest, and then they travel to what remains of his left arm. He nods, and the understanding between them is complete. 

“We’re ok like this,” he wants to say.  
“We are both of us just fine as we are.” 

Rey’s finally focused downward to where he’s still standing at attention.  
Does she look nervous? 

He’s about to ask Rey if they’re still on schedule when she blurts, “I’m clean. And…and I’ve got an IUD. I’m good for another three years, at least.”

Clyde smiles, and does a belly flop next to Rey on his bed trying to think of how to help her relax. 

“Me too. Well, ‘bout bein’ clean, I mean. I have passed inspection,” he says with a wink, and then turns his head towards her. 

She gives a little chuckle, and he pulls her up towards the bed board. When she’s finally arranged in the middle of his mattress, he cages her in with his entire body and applies long, lingering kisses down her cheeks, neck, and shoulders. Finally, he attends to the worship of each small breast again, catching each nipple in his mouth in a counted repetition that he’s amazed he can control at this point, rolling the pebbling flesh between his tongue and teeth. Finally, she is breathing heavy and her little gasps make him ache.

“Now, we need to get one thing straight,” he breathes into her ear.  
Carefully, and with his tongue, he begins to trace the risen flesh and scaring until his cheek is resting on the little thatch of hair between her thighs. Languidly, he takes his index finger and traces the seam of her core. 

“We’re going to take this next part real slow.”

“I won’t break,” she assures him.  
He chuckles again and nudges her pelvic bone with his nose, absentmindedly taking the pad of his thumb across her drenched slit. 

“You won’t, but I might.”

She twists her hand into his hair in a rough recognition as his fingers invade her once again. He swirls his thumb around her clit and Rey begins letting little growls of frustration slip into the air above them. He responds by gently scissoring her open wider with two fingers in preparation. 

“Clyde, I swear to God, if you don’t get in there,”  
He hushes her by rising again, kissing her lips in a feverish fluid motion. 

Slowly and with the care of a pilgrim too near a sacred object, he aligns his member to the tight wet heat below him. He feels Rey spasm as he dares to push into her. She gasps and Clyde stills above her.

“I’m alright, darling. Just keep going,” she encourages. 

Burying his face in Rey’s loose hair, he continues his slow descent finding miraculously that she’s right. He will not tear her apart, but then he should have known his girl is so much stronger than he was first led to believe. Instinctively, she’s placed her legs around his waist and she’s relaxed until he’s fully sheathed. She moans, latching onto his neck lightly with her teeth. 

“You don’t hurt. Just kiss me. Be gentle, and kiss me.”

With a deep breath, Clyde lets his spine roll back into his hips as he gives one final small push home – then pulls himself halfway out. His body rejects the absence of her tight walls so he slowly guides himself back. She makes a guttural noise that hits him square in the loins, and he starts to move just a little more – keeping pace with both their breathing. 

“You take me so so good, baby,” he tells her between his own flurry of sounds and wet kisses. 

“Your pussy takes me so good.” 

With a feral sound, she’s suddenly turning them over.  
He’s shocked at first until he realizes what Rey is trying to do, and then he complies until he’s on his back, right hand splayed out against her waist.  
Slowly, she takes him inside her cunt again, moving rhythmically until she’s picking up speed and looking heavenwards, howling at his ceiling. 

“That a’girl. Fuck your pretty pussy on my cock,” he growls, watching her tits bounce and thighs move. Unable to keep still, Clyde begins to meet her thrust for thrust, catching her full on the upstroke of every motion until they’re crying out together.

It is good, he thinks fleetingly, that he doesn’t have any neighbors for half a mile. 

With a sudden spasm, she’s coming apart over him and a few moments later, he’s filling her up with his spend.  
It’s release and fire.  
It’s everything he’s wanted and something that Clyde Logan knows he’s willing to risk everything for in order to keep.  
His girl takes a moment, panting and breathing hard. Finally, he pulls her torso down so that she’s laying across his chest.

“Beautiful, beautiful girl,” he says, stroking the side of her face and moving his hand over her back in languid strokes. He is incapable of uttering more than that – there is only a deep abiding thankfulness.

They lay together in the dusk of the house for countless moments, listening to wind and owls and the night creep up around them. Finally, Rey lifts herself off of Clyde, kissing his shoulder lightly and curling herself into his side.

“Clyde?”  
She’s whispering in his ear again, and his heart skips a beat. 

“Yes, darlin’?”

“Can I love you?”

He lifts both of them off the mattress and stares down into her face, then lifts her torso onto his chest until she’s settled under the crook of his shoulder.  
Clyde holds her tight like that for a few seconds before burying his face in her tangled sweaty strands, doing his best to not let out the sob crawling up the back of his throat.  
Doing his best to hide the fact that he’s crying with disbelief. 

During his childhood, Clyde had gone to church on Sunday mornings every now and again with Mama.  
It had been important to her – especially near the end. He’d heard once or twice about doubting Thomas; as he remembered it, Thomas was the fellow that didn’t believe Jesus could come back from the dead.  
His sin was doubting the miracle of the resurrection, or some fool thing. 

Clyde had admitted to himself more than once that Thomas was the only biblical figure he’d ever related to – even a little bit. And it seems most relevant now; he’s skeptical at best about most things but wants to believe what he’s hearing from his girl. 

Rey wants him to believe, and that’s all he needs to know.

He decides that he will try to trust her until the truth – the possibility of her devotion - has settled in him.  
He’ll have to stop emulating Thomas, and start just being…Clyde.  
And Clyde is someone who is actively loved by a beautiful woman that’s been engraved by God himself.

He realizes that Rey is still waiting for him to say something.  
Clyde is not an eloquent man – hasn’t spoken this long or this much to anyone in a long, long time.  
But he will do his best for her, so he clears his throat. 

“For as long as you want sweetheart, but only if I can love you back.”


	11. Good Luck, Bad Luck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I seen that mighty big rock you’ve got stashed in your car. You shouldn’t just leave it in the coin tray by the way,” he mutters, pressing his lips together in a tight line before continuing. 
> 
> Rey sighs, making a mental note to ship the ring back to Poe as soon as she can. Or she could pawn the thing. There’s that option too. 
> 
> “I want t’get you another one,” Clyde continues.  
> “I been lookin’ around at a few I think you’d like. But…mainly, I’ve been waitin’ till we can talk about it some.”
> 
> He makes a noise in the back of his throat, and nods. 
> 
> ************

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, you're probably all wondering where Finn is, right?  
> And you're probably still wondering what Rey and Clyde are going to do about that wedding, right? 
> 
> Here's the designated song for this chapter. Thanks again for staying with me, beautiful humans.  
> I appreciate and love you!
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hSGBhq0NdA
> 
>  
> 
> ************

Rey wakes to dull thudding on the roof. She’s had a dream about looking for a new dress in the local hardware store with Maz. All she can find are screwdrivers and bolts, but it’s not what she needs. She knows there’s a dress hiding somewhere…somewhere.

There’s little insulation between the lower house and the shingles on the little blue doublewide just above the woods so when rain hits the hard surface, it sounds much like tiny rocks being pelted at the building from a short distance away. The percussive scatter-shot rhythm echoes in her ears, and makes the air vibrate.  
Aside from this, there is the large solid wall Clyde has formed around her body. He’s gripping tight at her waist and emitting so much heat that she can feel new rivulets of sweat forming between them where there’s base skin-to-skin contact. Rey fights for a moment to regain full consciousness, and as her mental cogs begin to spin normally she hears a loud echoing blast of thunder from somewhere beyond. At her back, there’s a tremor; momentarily she wonders if it’s an after-effect of the noisome peal, but then the massive limb that is holding her tight becomes vicelike. With some effort, she reaches around and grasps for Clyde’s shoulder. 

“Careful, love. You’ll squeeze me to death,” she mutters sleepily with a smile. The only answer she receives is the continued sound of rain. Concern fills her, and she frowns. Her bedmate continues to shake  
.  
“Clyde? Are you awake?” 

“I am,” says a gravely halting voice at her back. 

Rey pauses before speaking again.  
“You alright, then?”

She twists under the heft of his arm so that she can release herself and turn towards him. They’re both still unclothed, and Rey can barely make out the shape of quilts, sheets, and pillows that they’re buried in. She wraps her arms around his neck and shoulder, looking into his face. He’s staring at her with wide eyes, his breathing still happening in stops and starts. 

“Oh, darling…what is it?”

“It found us.”

“What?”

Clyde swallows hard before continuing.

“The Curse. I know it has ‘cause of the storm. And…and the lightening.”

Rey’s stomach drops as she shushes him, kissing him on the nose. Of course he’d think so; she’d just told him about her unlucky encounter and here was an electrical hullabaloo sweeping down around them at the worst possible moment. Gods, it’s crummy luck. 

“We’re in here together. It’s just a spot of rain traveling down through the valley. We’re safe, Clyde. We are.” 

He grunts, seemingly unconvinced, but the vibrations around her lessen. She remembers that there’s a small lamp on the nightstand next to her side of the bed, and turns over to switch it on. Rey takes a cursory look at the red numbers on an ancient clock radio, and notes that it’s around two in the morning. 

Low warm light spills over them as she smiles sadly; Clyde’s sleep-tangled mane, dark eyes, and serious expression are – even now - adorable. Rey moves into a sitting position, letting her half of the home-stitched piece quilt fall off of her torso. Perhaps, she thinks, another look at her tits will bring him out of his stupor. Absentmindedly, she reaches over to wipe tear trails from his face.

“Right. So whenever I’m afraid, I try to do something that will help me feel like I’ve got some control. Not feeling…powerless. That’s the main thing.”

With a sigh, Rey tries to decide how to continue. Simple aphorisms won’t cut it – besides, she’s never been much good at channeling the overbearing fuzziness of a Hallmark card. 

Those kinds of sentiments, she thinks, can be bought for two dollars at CVS. 

Those kinds of sentiments will not help her right now. 

Attempting to convince Clyde that his fears are unfounded seems cheap, too. 

She’s heard Jimmy upbraid his little brother a few times, telling him that The Curse isn’t real and that bad things happen to everybody.  
But it’s real to Clyde.  
It’s a living presence that keeps him continually worried because of what he thinks might happen. From what she’s seen, he insulates his life as much as one man can in an effort to outsmart misfortune – not unlike the bales of hay he’ll place around the house in another month or so. Besides his missing arm, it has become a defining struggle that grips him with deep-held concern.  
Suggesting to Clyde that The Curse is a simple conjecture strikes her as, at the very least, insulting. 

“What can we do that will make you feel that we’re safe? What can I do to help you with that?”

She wonders if anyone has ever asked him this before as he quietly considers her question. Clyde’s face goes from worried to stoic as another blast of thunder rumbles above them. In an instant, he’s leapt out from the nest of covers, then strides towards the bathroom. Rey watches with confusion, noting wryly that even if she has not managed to distract him, his ass is certainly a lovely distraction for her. 

Momentarily, a very naked Clyde reappears in the bedroom with a container of dental floss, which causes Rey to raise her brow and choke back a chuckle.

“I know my breath must be bad, but you could have just asked me not to speak directly into your,” 

“Hush,” he commands, sitting down with resolution on the bed. Rey scoffs, but does as she’s told. She watches carefully as Clyde pulls a line of floss up from the container with his teeth while simultaneously shimming off a ring from the fourth finger of his right hand. 

Rey has seen this ring every day since she's known Clyde - its silver and has the shape of a horseshoe set in its middle.

He takes the floss, then threads it through the ring and eyes Rey’s neck before wrapping it several more times in a circle. With a final tug on the cord he’s formed, he seems satisfied that it won’t break. Finally, it's a rough minty-smelling necklace and he lowers it over her head with a deft nod of approval. The ring has a nice heft to it and it hangs at her breastbone, still warm from Clyde’s finger. 

“I seen that mighty big rock you’ve got stashed in your car. You shouldn’t just leave it in the coin tray by the way,” he mutters, pressing his lips together in a tight line before continuing. Rey sighs, making a mental note to ship the ring back to Poe as soon as she can. Or she could pawn the thing. There’s that option too. 

“I want t’get you another one,” Clyde continues. “And I been lookin’ around at a few I think you’d like. But…mainly, I’ve been waitin’ till we can talk about it some.”  
He makes a noise in the back of his throat, and nods. 

“For now, I want you to wear this. It’s lucky. It’ll keep you safe. I’ll get you a real chain just as soon as I can.” 

Rey smiles up into big dark eyes, fingering the strands of floss holding the silver charm around her neck. The feeling of drinking a warm cuppa or sitting in the sun blooms in her chest as she realizes that she may not ever want another ring; certainly, she won’t be parted from the one he's just given her. Humming with approval, she also realizes that she can't seem to stop smiling. 

“This is brilliant, Clyde. Thank you.” 

He nods then climbs back into bed, grabbing Rey’s body up in his tree-limb arm. The upward motion is stabilized with his left bicep while she laughs and kicks. The man is strong - there's no denying that. There’s still the sound of hard rain outside and a heaviness that hangs over Clyde’s countenance. The two of them tangle their bodies together anyway and as Clyde comes inside of her for the second time in less than six hours, Rey thinks of how it’s better to be loved than careful. 

*******

The City Café is a living monument to Danville, West Virginia.  
It’s been run by the same family since 1953. 

You can trace the town history if you know what you’re looking for; scattered pictures of town festivals, past owners, former mayors, and townsfolk line the taupe walls in frames worn with age and dust. Images of red and yellow cartoon Skyhawks – mascot of the only high school in town – are plastered near the front counter, and a sign in the window proudly states, “We Support Scott High Sports!” 

A roughed-up bulletin board just beyond the register is wallpapered with birth announcements, flyers for missing pets, and the occasional business card. You’re not really from Danville unless you’ve been to the cafe a hundred times or more. 

It opens by five every morning so that the local farmers and factory workers can meet to drink coffee. Folks from the plant go there, too. When the third and first shifts end, they wander in to decompress, grab a piece of pie, and chat for a little while before going home. 

The girls from Maz’ salon head over there at least once a day for coffee to go and a cookie or two. Even lawyers and judges walk down from the town’s courthouse for lunch. Rey hasn’t had a chance to actually sit in the place or take in the atmosphere yet, but it’s known as neutral ground. 

The café is an equalizer. No matter your occupation or reputation, town residents file through the front door of the aging brick building. They’re announced promptly by a small brass bell attached to the frame, and either Shirly or Peggy (both of whom have been working there for at least the last decade) will give you a glance, then tell you to sit wherever you want to. 

People come in for their hamburgers, bowls of chow-chow, crispy grease-covered hash browns, and fruit cobblers. They come for company and to check in on the general state of things. Much like the bevvy of local churches, City Café is considered hallowed ground. 

Rey is sitting in a corner of the place at noon on a Thursday holding a hot cup of coffee. She realizes now that ordering caffeine hadn’t been a wise choice. She’s meeting with someone she hasn’t spoken to in two or three months, after all. 

It was all the phone call’s fault. She’d been at the salon right after closing time, and her cell had rung. When she saw the name flashing across her screen, her blood had frozen. Out of a misplaced sense of rage, she’d picked up too quickly for her good sense to stop her. 

“What the hell do you want?”  
Her growl had been followed by a tense silence, and then a tentative cough on the other end of the line. 

“Well, I guess I deserve that.”

“You abso-fucking-lutely do.”

There’s another beat of silence before anyone speaks. 

“I’d like to talk. I know there’s nothing I can say to make this ok, but I have something for you, and - and I want to come see you.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Finn,” Rey says softly after a moment. “You haven’t spoken to me since - when? And if Poe’s sent you,”

“No! No, it’s nothing like that,” a frantic voice assures her. “It’s just that…I need to try and make at least some of this right. Even if we’re not friends anymore.” 

So here she sits. On the one hand, she’s half frightened that she’ll go bonkers when she sees her former best friend. On the other hand, she’s frightened because she hasn’t told anyone about the meeting. Rey ponders that a moment, trying to articulate to herself why she’s opted for secrecy. But then there’s the ringing of the bell from the front, and then there’s Finn staring down at her from where he's standing and shifting his feet. 

“H-hi,” he stammers. 

Rey nods at him, then motions towards the chair on the other side of her table. Finn looks around wearily with a slight smile as his sits.  
“I’m a little freaked out by this place. I haven’t seen any other black people, and I’m getting…some looks.”

A wry chuckle leaves Rey’s throat. 

“I don’t think you’re safe anywhere in this entire bloody country. I’m a bit safer…but not so safe that I haven’t thought the same. About this town, that is. It seems…nice. But people always seem nice…” She motions around the place with her hand instead of finishing the sentence, and they share a small, sad smile. 

There’s a moment where they’re just Rey and Finn again. The old companionship creeps in, and she’s left wishing for a time before everything got fractured and awful. She looks at Finn’s handsome face; it’s the face of her first real friend, and it nearly glows with kindness. The sight of him after all these days and weeks tightens her insides like a screw, and her heart crumples for a moment like old paper. She shifts her stare towards her coffee cup before letting out a long, resigned sigh.

“Why are you here? What do you need to say?”

There’s some silence before he clears his throat, then he reaches for the inner pocket of his denim jacket to retrieve a long envelope. 

“Poe told me…that you’re getting married. Just…not to him.”

“Well, obviously.”

“I…thought that the least I could do was cancel all the reservations and orders you'd made for your wedding this December. You know, so that you wouldn’t have to do it yourself.”

Rey sits there in stunned silence for a moment. Of course, it’s occurred to her to try and cancel the venue and flowers and – everything else. She hadn’t had the presence of mind to do it, though. It had just been too painful right after - everything. 

Until now, it’s been locked away into the “Problems for Future Rey” part of her mind. 

“Th-thank you,” she manages.

“And I wanted to make sure you got this – because you deserve it.”

Finn hands Rey the envelope and with some reservation, she takes it. There’s a pause while Rey tries to decide what to do next but against her better judgement, she opens it.  
Inside is a check for $10,000 dollars. 

“I was able to get back some of the down payments for stuff. I…didn’t tell them everything, but I gave them enough information so that they knew it was the right thing to do. And the amount is small enough that you won’t have to pay taxes on it.”

Rey’s eyes are wide. Her hands are shaking just a little. 

“You used your Finn charm, didn’t you?”  
He grins at that.

“Maybe I did. A little bit, yeah.” 

“And Poe was ok with you just…giving this to me?”

“I told him to stop being pissy and that it’s the least we can do after…the knock-down drag-out at that bartender’s house.”

“Clyde,” she says quickly, correcting him.

“His name is Clyde.”  
He nods in acknowledgement, then takes a deep breath.

“Rey…are you…are you ok? I mean, I don’t want you to feel like you’ve got to marry a stranger because you have nowhere else to go or you feel like you can’t stay in the country.”

“Maybe,” she grits out, “after getting screwed over by my best friend and fiancé I decided that love was for the birds, eh? Maybe I’ll have a better chance with a stranger?”  
Finn’s expression hardens.

“Nope. That’s not the Rey I know. I need you to tell me that this isn’t just desperation…because weather you’re pissed at me or not, I want you to be ok. And if you need someone to break you out of a shit situation, I’m down.” 

“You put me in this shit situation,” she quipped before being able to stop herself. 

“I am now dragging myself out of it.”  
They glared at each other until Rey relents. 

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m ok,” she says gently. 

“And…and I’m still angry, but it’s a little different now because Clyde is…well, he’s a good man and I don’t mind having him in my life. I'm...lucky to have ended up here, actually.”

She looks wistfully around the cafe. It's not a lie. It's not even pretense created from the ribbons of her pride. She came to a small dusty little town, and fell for someone that she might have always been meant for. That was the simple truth of it.

“Oh. My. God.”  
Finn interrupts her thought as his eyes widen. 

“You like him. You actually want to go through with this because you…wait, do you love him? Wait! Wait! Are you sleeping with the bartender?”

“Again, none of your business.”

“Girl, I can read you like a book. You know I can.”

She smirks. As angry as she’s been, it’s good to banter with Finn again. He was always her's. Her friend, her confidant – maybe he was her's more than Poe had ever been. What had happened was the worst betrayal she could think of. Her lover and best friend had both been gone in one fell swoop. The lonesomeness of it all nearly ate her alive. It had hurt so much, and Rey had felt like a piece of fruit that had been hollowed out by the dull edge of a spoon. She’d willingly been drinking herself into stupor after stupor just to find some relief. She knows one thing for sure - she's still not ready to make nice. That's not a possibility right now.  
Not remotely.

But maybe…there’s a way back. Someday. A damn long time from now.

“Thanks," she finally says, realizing that she'd been silent for a long time as Finn sat there awkwardly. Let him squirm. After all, what did he expect? "Thanks for driving down here and – and for the money. I can use it to help pay some bills at the place I’m staying.” 

“Yeah, no problem,” Finn mutters softly. They sit in silence, unable to mend anything else. With a final sigh, the handsome man wearing all the guilt gets up to leave.

“Like I said, I know that there’s nothing I can say to make things good again. Not right now. But…I want to you have this, at least.”

She hums thoughtfully, and then an idea lights up her face.

“Hey, can you do me a favor?”  
Finn raises a brow, wearily assessing the question. She knows that he'll say "yes" to whatever she wants. That's the contract, now. Steal a woman's fiance and you kind of owe her for the next couple decades, at least.

“Um, wh-what’s that? What do you need?”

*******  
Finn drives away from Sheer Designs in his black Volvo, and Rey watches his car till it’s completely out of sight.  
She's lighter. The weight of things has decreased, and thinking about the recent past is more of a dull ache and not the sharp stab of dark, unknowable edges. 

This meeting isn’t nearly the end of healing – no, that would be too simple. Clyde's words echo in her head - there's nothing to be done but go through this and confront it in all its bloody, messy glory. But at least there’s no engagement ring still in her car, anchoring her to dead, broken dreams. Instead, the “mighty big rock” is going back with Finn to where it belongs. 

Pawning the thing won’t bring her old life back. She’ll never be the affluent architect’s wife. She won’t have Poe’s kids, and she won’t live in a large apartment over a city scape. She will never realize the dream of fixing dinner while Poe chases their children around the living room of the swank glass and leather two-thousand a month loft.   
But she can live in a little house next to the woods with a gruff bear of a man who loves her. Rey can see herself there, nestled in their bed every night. They will hold each other through every thunderstorm and season that they're allowed in this life. She'll claim the Logans as her own, and she'll become a fixture of Danville like Maz, and Mellie, and all the rest. 

Rey feels under her flannel shirt for the silver horseshoe on a ring that now dangles on a sterling silver chain around her neck. It’s the ring she never takes off and she’s planning on having it resized soon.  
Her heels spring to life as she bounds back into the salon. 

“Hey gorgeous,” Mellie yells from the back over a cloud of hairspray and classic country playing a little too loudly from speakers attached haphazardly to the wall. She should really fix Maz up with a better sound system, she thinks. 

“How was lunch?” 

“Good,” she responded loudly, then grins. 

“I was just thinking that November third is an absolutely ace day for a wedding.”  
The littlest Logan stops mid-spray and a coral pink grin splits across her face.

“Hell yeah it is!”

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think. I live for comments and such!  
> I've had one hell of a good time writing this, and I hope you enjoy reading it too. 
> 
> You can always pop by to say 'hello' on Tumblr, as well.  
> You can find me under wordbyrdaber


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